Tag Archive for 'technology'

Life After Facebook

There’s been a lot of talk about Facebook lately, with many articles/blogs/tweets urging people to disable or delete their accounts.

Most of the arguments are in regards to privacy issues, and I agree with many (probably all) of them. As a computer geek, I have issues with their constantly evolving privacy policy and increasingly confusing privacy settings. I almost never condone an opt-out system. As a libertarian, I have issues with their attempts to monopolize every aspect of online interaction and integrate with just about every site and service on the Internet.

While decreasing privacy is a valid argument against the social media giant (every day it seems there’s another privacy breach) it’s not my biggest motivator for disabling and/or deleting my account. I certainly value the Fourth Amendment, but I’m not under the foolish assumption that if I delete my account the world won’t know my political and personal beliefs. This is the Interweb, I’m well aware that if I post something on ANY website it becomes public and I’m responsible for that content. I’ve had this blog up for years and have tweeted over 5,000 times, it’s too late for me to become anonymous, nor do I want to be.

Facebook is a total time suck.

This is the biggest one for me. I have To Do lists in my pocket, dozens of unanswered emails, voicemails never returned,  petitions needing to be signed, half-read books… and what am I doing– checking Facebook. WHY? Once I start a new tab and type “F” my trusty Firefox loads Facebook and there goes at least an hour of my life. After that time goes down the drain I have nothing to show for it.

It’s yet another irony of modern society. We’re so concerned with saving time — reading Lifehacker, buying faster computers, finding ways 2 shorten our sentences, etc. — and then we go waste those saved hours on Facebook. WTF?

Think about all the things we could be accomplishing instead.

Here’s just one example: the global economy is teetering on the edge of collapse and instead of brushing up on our survival skills, we’re playing Farmville. Unfortunately, meticulously maintained virtual crops won’t feed you if the Dow crashes tomorrow and there’s a run on grocery stores. How about planting a real garden that will yield real food?

Overt marketing.

Facebook has always had advertising, but only recently has it become downright shameless. Your “Likes and Interests” are now automatically linked to Pages, usually tied to a company of some sort. Every piece of your profile is segmented, dissected, analyzed and sold to the highest bidder. Want to know how many 19 year-olds in Iowa like American Idol? Buy some ad space and Facebook will tell you.

Most people don’t have a problem with this, but I do. The focus is no longer about maximizing user-experience and facilitating meaningful interaction between friends, but to serve as a framework for selling ads. Everything you like, join, post, etc. becomes material for profit. No thanks, count me out.

Centralization.

Back in the day we used Gmail and Hotmail to send email, AIM for Instant Messaging, Digg and Reddit to share links and news, forums to discuss/debate, Twitter to post status updates, WordPress and LiveJournal to blog, Flickr to share photos, and YouTube for video. Now you can do all these things on Facebook. I have an account on many of these Web 2.0 sites, but I certainly don’t expect my friends and family to check all of them just to keep up with my life. It’s understandable people prefer to load one page and have all that content delivered to one place.

Centralization converts to convenience for many people, but there’s much to be said about diversity. Centralization means one company holds all the power, dictates all the policies, and retains all the data. A decentralized social media world means power and data are distributed, resulting in a much more secure and accountable system.

When I first entertained the idea of quitting Facebook, I scoured the Internet for an alternative, some kind of benevolent version of what Facebook used to be. Now I realize that’s not the solution either. I’m not comfortable with one company/entity being in control of the entire system. I don’t like central banks, I don’t like central governments, and I don’t want a centralized social network.

So I’m going back to life before Facebook. I’m going to resurrect my Digg account, recommit to Gmail, love Last.fm even more, keep blipping, tweeting and blogging, and if people really want to stay in touch and know what I’m up to, they’ll just have to work a little harder.

Ready to Delete?

First you have to decide if you want to disable or delete your account. Disabling means your profile is no longer published but the information is saved. You can log back in any time and restore your profile to its original state. Deleting your account removes your data from Facebook’s servers entirely (after a 14-day waiting period.)

There are plenty of guides already written that will help you through the process of either disabling or deleting your account. Be sure to make note of any friends’ contact information you may need access to later, especially emails and phone numbers.

What You’ll Miss

In a world without Facebook you may no longer know the birthday of every person you went to high school with. You won’t have dozens of random posts/businesses/concepts to “like” during the course of your day. You may not realize so-and-so has to work a double and then they’re going to watch Glee.

It’s okay, life will go on, I promise.

…Stay Tuned for Diaspora

This afternoon I learned about Diaspora, “the privacy aware, personally controlled, do-it-all distributed open source social network.”

Created by four NYU students initially looking for $10,000 in start-up funds, as of this posting they’re up to $55,000 and it’s still going up. **UPDATE: 12 hours after posting this, they’re now past $86,000 and people are noticing. Diaspora essentially aims to be an open-source version of Friendfeed (bought by Facebook in 2009.) Rather than create (and host) one giant system that tries to be everything to everyone, their open-source, distributed system will aggregate all desired content sources into one location.

What does that mean?

Well, for example, my Diaspora profile would probably be a conglomeration of photos, RSS feeds, Twitter, Last.fm, Blip.fm, and Digg, while somebody else may have their profile fed by Vimeo, Reddit, and Flickr. Share whatever content you want, Friend whoever you want, hide whatever you want. That’s the beauty of a protocol-driven open-source social network. Diaspora will allow us to maintain a diverse social networking world, while adding in the convenience factor we’ve now come to expect.

With the Diaspora system we will control our own data. Want to back up your Facebook status updates, friends list, photos, etc? Too bad, there is no option to do so, Facebook owns YOUR information. If you want to pry it out of their servers you need to use a third-party service like SocialSafe. Can you imagine Gmail not letting you export your Contacts? Or AT&T customers only being able to call other AT&T customers? Yet this closed-network lack-of-ownership system is perfectly acceptable behavior for Facebook.

For those reasons and many more, I am immensely excited about the arrival of Diaspora and highly encourage you to support its development.

The future is open, if we want it.

2009’s Most Promising Podcasts

podcast

News. Truth. Common Sense. Inspiration.

If you can’t stand mainstream media sources (I’m talking to you ABC/BBC/CBS/CNN/Fox/MSNBC/NBC/NPR/NYT) that never talk about the real issues and never give real solutions, check these out:

  1. Free Talk Live

    “This show is about Liberty with a capital L.”

  2. Survival Podcast

    “Helping you live the life you want, if times get tough, or even if they dont.”

  3. Wall St. Unspun with Peter Schiff

    Weekly market news broadcast in support of sound money, limited government, and free market capitalism.

Old media is dead. Independent news is our only hope.

Thanks to my friend Tim for pointing me to 2 of these!

ACTION ITEM: Speak Out Against Myspace’s Exclusion of Third Party Candidates

If you visit the Myspace Election 2008 page you will see only the Democratic and Republican candidates listed. (I know, big surprise from a Fox-owned company.) Even though most of us abhor Myspace, we should still be emailing them about the obvious exclusion of FOUR other candidates.

They’re exposing their users to only 2 out of 6 candidates which means they’re only giving us 30% of our options! This is not acceptable.

Here’s the quick and easy way to take action:

  • Email them via this contact form. Be sure to point out that they’re including only 2 out of 6 candidates, and they owe it to their members to include ALL candidates on the ballot, including the Constitution Party, Green Party, Libertarian Party, and Independent candidates.
  • Pass this on!

We all have issues with Myspace, I know, but the fact remains that millions of voters look at this page and may otherwise have no idea there are 4 other options.

DEMAND that ALL candidates be included!

“The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can ‘throw the rascals out’ at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy.”

- Carroll Quigley from “Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in our Time”

Net Neutrality vs. Libertarianism

Last Friday the FCC ruled to punish Comcast for violating Net Neutrality rules and blocking Internet traffic. While I used to be a strong proponent of Net Neutrality, I’m starting to reconsider my position now that I’ve discovered my Libertarian-leanings.

I used to view this issue as one of absolute necessity and importance. Something MUST be done, or else we’re left with this in our future:

No net neutrality

That’s definitely no good.

While part of me is secretly glad that Comcast was punished for their questionable business practices, one must keep in mind that the FCC is a federal agency and Comcast is a publicly-owned company. The U.S. Constitution says nothing about the federal government meddling in the affairs of businesses (it also says nothing about using these companies to spy on Americans, but that’s a whole other matter.)

Of course I don’t agree with their business practices and I’m very glad they aren’t my ISP. However — in a Free Market we wouldn’t need government intervention to deal with this sort of problem, we would simply leave them as a customer. Alas, we quite obviously do NOT live in a Free Market society and telecommunications monopolies are a bitter reality. In my apartment complex, for example, the only cable/internet option is Time Warner. Which means either I pay their outlandish price every month or I get static.

The issue of Net Neutrality is a perfect example of how the Free Market could be used to solve consumer problems instead of asking the government for help. Instead of being forced to put up with whatever sketchy access Comcast decided to give its customers, people could simple choose another ISP. Another bonus– the Free Market doesn’t eat up our tax dollars.

Generation Q: My quiet, virtual response

At the urging of a couple friends, I’m posting a response I emailed to them, critiquing “Generation Q”, a recent New York Times Op-Ed by Thomas Friedman. In his article, Friedman discusses the “too quiet, too online” generation of college students, their idealism, tendency to be drawn to “virtual politics”, and what the implications are for activist movements and our political future.

“…the more I am around this generation of college students, the more I am both baffled and impressed.

I am impressed because they are so much more optimistic and idealistic than they should be. I am baffled because they are so much less radical and politically engaged than they need to be.”

My first thought — I wish he would address the effectiveness of this “traditional” activism that so many, including Friedman, seem to desire.

After reading about electronic civil disobedience (ECD), I started taking into account the decentralization of power and the need to adapt activist strategies accordingly. We no longer take to the streets like people did en masse in the 60’s, that’s quite obvious. Okay, sometimes we do. On the weekends. After weeks of planning. Wow, what spontaneous and effective actions those are, look what we’ve changed! But even if we did drop everything, walk out from our day jobs, and storm onto the streets like we see happening in our dreams of revolution, do those that have the power to make important changes even care? Are we really taking away their power by occupying the streets anymore, and isn’t that the whole idea? From my basic research and reading, the idea of ECD is that the streets no longer stand for what they used to. We still have ominous marble structures and riot-gear clad police officers looming around that symbolize power, but they are only facades. The real power is running through the underground channels, between banks, behind closed doors, through the phone lines. We are no longer interrupting the status quo like we used to by filling the streets with signs and chants. It is this very reason I’m no longer convinced that getting a million people in DC will mean anything anymore. It’s a sad realization and I would love for someone to convince me otherwise.

“The Iraq war may be a mess, but I noticed at Auburn and Ole Miss more than a few young men and women proudly wearing their R.O.T.C. uniforms. Many of those not going abroad have channeled their national service impulses into increasingly popular programs at home like “Teach for America,” which has become to this generation what the Peace Corps was to mine.

It’s for all these reasons that I’ve been calling them “Generation Q” — the Quiet Americans, in the best sense of that term, quietly pursuing their idealism, at home and abroad.”

I think he “misunderestimates” the power of the change in perspective which is illustrated by the growing number of people doing national service.

Yes this is particularly close to me since I did AmeriCorps. But devoting years of your life to national service is not a “quiet” undertaking whatsoever. It is not passive, it is not ineffective, it is not easy. Indeed, it was the most eye-opening thing I’d ever done at that point in my life. It allowed me to see and experience first-hand what our government’s policies do to the infrastructure of our country. It allowed me to develop myself so I could do what little I could to help the children that are having their lives fu—ed over by endless war and corruption, with no money and no focus left over for their future after we’ve paid for all our bombs. The fact that so many college students are doing Teach for America and Peace Corps is HUGE. It’s a first step in realizing there’s a whole world out there and we are all connected. Doesn’t he realize what that shift in perspective means? For students to be opening their eyes to that? Yes, maybe some just do it for their resumes and because it’s safer than going to war. The point is, they’re doing it. They can control their motivation for going in, but I firmly believe they can’t control the way service affects them and the way their lives are changed on their way out.

“America needs a jolt of the idealism, activism and outrage (it must be in there) of Generation Q. That’s what twentysomethings are for — to light a fire under the country. But they can’t e-mail it in, and an online petition or a mouse click for carbon neutrality won’t cut it. They have to get organized in a way that will force politicians to pay attention rather than just patronize them.

Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy didn’t change the world by asking people to join their Facebook crusades or to download their platforms. Activism can only be uploaded, the old-fashioned way — by young voters speaking truth to power, face to face, in big numbers, on campuses or the Washington Mall. Virtual politics is just that — virtual.”

Yes, we are the Q Generation. Correct, Facebook is not going to stop Global Warming. But there is vast power in the technology that such pseudo-actions are built on, it just needs to be realized.

There is a line by Ani DiFranco that I love, “every tool is a weapon, if you hold it right.” Well, to me that’s what technology is. Right now it’s very empowering, I mean look at how much information we have thrown at us. But information alone is not enough. And it’s to our detriment in many senses because it creates another layer of separation. We can read as many articles about melting ice caps and genocide as we want, but despite how well-written and true-to-life these articles may be, in the end they are still just pixels on a screen. They are not feltbreathedtouchedREAL to us. We don’t smell the smoke from the burning villages. We don’t hear the cries of children pierce the after-bomb silence. We don’t stand in the puddles of melting glaciers. These stories are only as palpable as the ones about OJ or Paris and therefore they’re just as easily tossed aside and forgotten. What Friedman is missing in his article is the next step. How to take this environment of energy and technology that Generation Q is living in — and make it REAL? Then, I believe, people will act.

Also worth noting, I think, is the fact that the way our children are raised these days, with such sick emphasis given to higher education.. no wonder they can only be concerned with their collegiate bubble!

All kids hear about is doing well in school… so they can get into a good college… so they can get a good job… so they can, so they can, so they can, on and on! Though it’s disappointing, the lack of motivation is understandable to me. It seems as early as kindergarten kids are thrown into this culture of competition in the ultimate quest for the almighty dollar and “the good life” where self-worth is only attained upon graduation. We are foolish to act surprised by the end result.

To end on a good note, I think Friedman has the foundation of the argument right, because most importantly— Generation Q GIVES A DAMN, and that is not something to be taken lightly.

That is the crucial foundation on which to build. But that’s the key word: “build.” Effective activism in 2007 is something that still needs to be cultivated and realized. Whether that’s utilizing effective practices from the 60’s, growing/inventing something entirely new, or creating a diverse mix of practices, old and new — it’s obvious that something is needed to fill the void.

In the end, of course, this is just another collection of easily dismissed thoughts and pixels, the opinion of a 20-something quiet activist web geek, and there is every possibility I’ve missed his point entirely because I’m one of those he is writing about.

Friday news clips

More love for Gmail

Today I discovered a new feature added to the already fabulous creation that is Gmail. Not sure how long this has been available, but that doesn’t really matter I suppose. What does matter is now you can add other email accounts to your Gmail and therefore not have to have one tab open for Gmail, another for Yahoo, another for ::insert obscure email address here:: Nope! Now you add them all together with full Gmail functionality (cascading conversations, labeling, filters, etc.) Oh and by the way, you can now retroactively label messages, another new addition I just noticed. Can it get any better??

Here’s my personal scenerio: I have a RiseUp.net account, and though I have nothing but love for them and their support of progressive activism, their webmail understandably doesn’t come close to Gmail. I also have two email accounts for Columbus911Truth.org (using GoDaddy’s email server), and again— its webmail doesn’t even compare. And I have another account for work— and, you guessed it, the webmail interface can’t compete. But now they don’t have to feel inferior because they’re all together in Gmail!

It was a little overwhelming and disorganized at first as it imported all the Inbox messages from the newly added accounts (something to pay close attention to, I suggest making sure the “Leave a copy of retrieved message on the server.” box is checked until you’re positive you want to make the switch, that way none of your messages are permanently moved from the original account.) After I got everything sorted out, marked as “read”, etc., I set up filters so that only emails sent to my actual Gmail address go to the Inbox. Everything else skips the Inbox and goes to its corresponding folder (”label” in Gmail-speak.) So for example, when I’m at work I just click on the work label and it only shows those messages. It really is possible to have 5 emails accounts totally organized and living together peacefully!

Something worth mentioning, when you send emails from the newly added accounts, it actually sends it through that email’s SMTP server, so it’s not just masking the “From:” address. (So they say anyway, but I tested it and it sure looked real to me!)

Gmail Notifier is another bonus. I didn’t have that option for any of my other accounts, but this way it covers them all.

A couple things to watch out for: make sure you understand the “leave copy of message on server” setting, and make sure you have the right POP settings. Gmail will try to guess what the settings are based on the address you enter, but it’s not psychic so you may need to do some Googling to get the right server address and port number. And it has to be POP, no support for IMAP yet. “Yet”, I hope, is the key word. :-)

To sum up: Gmail rules. And I have reaffirmed my geekiness by how excited I was about this today. Oh— there’s a prize for whoever counts how many times I said “Gmail” in this post. That last one doesn’t count.