Over the holidays, a big debate erupted over a small change made to Google Reader, its web-based feed aggregator. For a good while now, Reader has included two different options for sharing the content that you read with others. First, the user can enable sharing features for tags that he or she has applied to different posts or subscriptions, creating a public webpage and a public RSS feed for those items. The second sharing option is to click “Share” under individual posts. Similarly, this sends the post to a public webpage and a public RSS feed. For both of these options, the user generally has to choose to share the URL of the public webpage or feed with their friends.
Several weeks ago, Google made the next step towards a more social integration of their various communication products. After determining which of the contacts in a user’s Gmail contact list had been contacted via Google Talk (in Gmail), Google would insert all of the items a user had marked as “shared” into those contacts’ Readers. Essentially, Google was inferring that a contact with whom a user had spoken to via Google Talk was one degree more “intimate” of a contact… and they decided that this degree of intimacy was enough to apply the term “friendship” (as understood in the context of social networking, at least).
In the opinion of this blogger, the outcry expressed by users of Google Reader over this new feature of the product is simultaneously warranted and absurd. It is warranted because Google did not present its users with an opt-in option, because it does not give users enough control over the updated sharing feature, and because it misconstrues frequently-contacted-contacts with “friends.” It is absurd because critics and naysayers are saying that Google’s move amounts to a breach of privacy because it renders public what was once private.
Continue reading ‘The Google Reader Debate: What is a “friend”? What is “public”? What is “privacy”?’
a guest post by Daniel H.
This year the Starbucks Corporation realized significant losses in stock value. Today Bloomberg reported that the company’s stock prices were the lowest they had been since May 2004. Did the coffee bubble burst? Did everyone finally get their fix? Do some people like coffee less than they did 3 years ago? And has the trendiness of spending hours on a laptop in one of their cafes come to pass?
I mention this fact because I wonder whether or not the coffee market has become over-saturated. With a Starbucks (or Caribou, or any other name brand cafe) on every corner, can the market sustain itself? It seems, for once, that the forces of economics have begun to moderate what once could only be called a national caffeine dependency. And I’m somewhat guilty of furthering this craze myself; at this point in my life I’m still consuming 3 cups a day.
So if the mighty coffee market can weaken, what other markets can become oversaturated? Economic principals tell us that every market can reach a point in which demand is decreased due to abundant availability. But what about the information market? Will we ever reach a point in which our desire for information, for advances in technology, science, medicine, etc. is quenched, where the demand weakens, and the bubble bursts? It seems that an ever-increasing demand for knowledge has fueled, since the beginning of time, most of our scientific and technological advances. And at the beginning, our needs necessitated these advances. But have we, or will we ever reach a point when our daily lives have no direct needs that can’t be satisfied by previously existing knowledge? What do we need to know now, that we didn’t know before, to help us be better humans or citizens?
This week’s required reading: “Informing ourselves to Death,” by Neil Postman.
Image used under a Creative Commons license from Flickr user al-hayat.
This, if true, is exciting news indeed:
“Data from a new IBM survey reveals we as consumers would be willing to pay more for environmentally friendly energy options if more information could be made available to educate themselves.”
But can we count on–or wait on–consumers to drive the widespread adoption of alternative energy against their immediate, pocketbook interests?
Continue reading ‘Markets for Clean Energy…At Added Costs to Willing Consumers?’
I would never have a reason to pick up the Weekly Standard, were it not the most appealing choice–Squash! magazine was my next best option if that gives you an idea–on the reading shelf at the gym. Fortunately, the cover story did not disappoint. This is an intriguing look at the legal issues at stake in Google’s Book Search project. The central question posed by Google’s approach to creating a digital library seems to echo their defense of YouTube and the tricky issues of copyright presented by that tool. That question, in its most basic form: is it the responsibility of the content creator (the author, in this case) or the content provider (Google) to ensure that the copyright is protected. As the Weekly Standard article points out:
“Google maintains that by giving copyright owners the chance to opt out of the program, it has performed due diligence with respect to the copyright. This turns traditional law–which stipulates that someone wanting to use copyrighted material must seek and receive affirmative permission–on its head.”
Continue reading ‘Just a Little Light Gym Reading’
Erick over at Techcrunch recently posted a review of the just-relaunched Spokeo, what one might call a web 2.0 aggregator. (Spokeo consequently experienced an onslaught of new registrations, including my own). FriendFeed, started by four ex-Googlers, is a similar service that has received more press, including a New York Times write-up. These services basically scour the web for updates from your friends on various web 2.0 services such as Pandora, Google Reader, and Amazon.com Wishlists, and consolidates them into a single feed. What you essentially have, then, is the equivalent of the Facebook News Feed for all web 2.0 services that have publicly accessible information. When your friends add pictures, make comments, listen to music, or add a book to their wish list, this information is delivered directly to an “inbox” where you can review and even comment on it.
Like many major innovations these days, this new type of service can be seen in both positive and negative lights. On the positive end, you no longer have to spend hours each week jumping from service to service looking for updates from your friends. It is the most efficient way to passively find out what your friends are up to in their online lives. Hopping onto Spokeo, FriendFeed, or a similar service, you can very quickly browse through photos, blog posts, and other updates. Strictly speaking in the interest of facilitating the flow of information not into or out of “the cloud,” but within the cloud itself… this sort of service is revolutionary.
Now for the scarier stuff.
Continue reading ‘Spokeo, or Spooky-o?’
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