A few thoughts on Google+

The Tribune de Genève interviewed me on Google+. My point: it’s really cool, it will just be hard to expand beyond the early adopters crowd as it is… and maybe casual gaming could help change that.

A l’image de Laurent Haug, les spécialistes restent sceptiques: «Personnellement, je suis séduit, confie le fondateur de Lift, la conférence genevoise sur l’innovation technologique, mais je pense que Google+ va avoir du mal à attirer le grand public.»

Le réseau social arrive en effet sur un terrain déjà affolé. «Beaucoup de gens ont des comptes à la fois sur Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn ou autres, rappelle Laurent Haug. Gérer les différents profils prend du temps. Cette multiplication des services va pousser les utilisateurs à n’en privilégier qu’un seul.» Pas sûr qu’ils soient nombreux à vouloir quitter Facebook, où leur vie numérique s’étale souvent depuis plusieurs années, en faveur d’un nouveau venu où tout est à refaire.

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Ending anonymity: the Korean identity system “debacle”

I already mentioned the problems of online bullying happening in Korea (the (online) persecution of Daniel Lee, Korea’s top actress commits suicide amid rumors, Cyberviolence in Korea), and the government’s response which consisted in imposing a “real identity” system (update on Korea’s online identity system). Ars Technica is giving us an update, which is that the system will be.. abandoned!

The best argument against laws requiring websites to use “real name” policies is South Korea’s disastrous experiment with requiring websites to collect the real names of users who post content. Freedom House told the story in a recent report:

In 2007, the internet real-name registration system was expanded to apply to any website with more than 100,000 visitors per day. Users are required to verify their identities by submitting their Resident Registration Numbers (RRNs) when they wish to join and contribute to web portals and other major sites. As RRNs are assigned only to Korean citizens at birth, foreign nationals must individually contact webmasters to confirm their identities. This included the video-sharing website YouTube, but the site’s U.S.-based parent company, Google, refused to ask its Korean customers for their RRNs. Instead, it has blocked users from uploading content onto YouTube Korea. Users are able to bypass the restriction by changing their location setting to “worldwide.” Even the Korean presidential office maintains its YouTube channel in this way.

Trying to quell extremist views by preventing them from being expressed anonymously simply isn’t going to work. The Web is a big place; no government on Earth has the reach to completely eliminate anonymous forums from the Internet. Trying to suppress anonymous posting of extremist views just forces them underground, reinforcing extremists’ persecution complex and making them even more disconnected from mainstream political debates.

After a barrage of criticism, the South Korean government has finally announced plans to abandon the system. This recent decision came in the wake of a major security breach in which information about 35 million users was reportedly stolen from two popular websites.

Link

Développer sa créativité tous les jours

I gave a short talk (in French) at the Rendez-vous des entrepreneurs in June about creativity, and the tension I see between technologies that keep our minds busy, and the need for quiet moments that lead to creativity.

You can also check a short text recap here.

Social networks “are creating a vain generation of self-obsessed people with child-like need for feedback”

I am afraid the following claims contain a certain level of truth, despite the sensational tone that forces the reader to take the whole piece carefully. I am convinced there is a form of addiction to social feedback, and that we are just starting to find out the extent of changes this will trigger “in real life”.

Let’s wait and see if other “top scientists” back these claims. I still find it amazing that there are not more studies on social networks users, and the impact on actual social life. Have you seen such research?

Facebook and Twitter have created a generation obsessed with themselves, who have short attention spans and a childlike desire for constant feedback on their lives, a top scientist believes.

Repeated exposure to social networking sites leaves users with an ‘identity crisis’, wanting attention in the manner of a toddler saying: ‘Look at me, Mummy, I’ve done this.’

Baroness Greenfield, professor of pharmacology at Oxford University, believes the growth of internet ‘friendships’ – as well as greater use of computer games – could effectively ‘rewire’ the brain.

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The (online) persecution of Daniel Lee

I’m totally puzzled by the story of Daniel Lee being persecuted over a completely imaginary story of diploma forgery. The proportions this took are insane. I met Daniel (aka Tablo) a couple of years ago in Korea, he’s a super talented, smart, well educated young man that certainly didn’t deserve all the crap that came his way.

As usual, this all comes down to a few bored jerks who, hidden behind the anonymity conferred by their computer screens, feel like they can say whatever they want without consequences. Scary, and this form of harassment will soon spread to all wired countries.

The Persecution of Daniel Lee
An Internet smear campaign nearly destroyed the South Korean star, but he fought back with the only weapon he had: the truth.
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The ambiguity of web 2.0′s vocabulary

Recent events have shown how inadequate the standard web 2.0 vocabulary can be. See a few examples below, from liking someone’s death, to liking the Oslo bombing, to Amy Winehouse passing away being “most popular”.

^{Seen on Facebook, “RIP Amy Winehouse, XXX likes this”. The like is quite ambigious. Is the person happy for the death, or just adding up his/her thoughts on the RIP?}

^{Seen on YouTube: “Oslo bomb attacks, liked by XXX”. This one is not even ambiguous. Just  a standard term coming short because of the context.}

^{Seen on CNN: Amy Winehouse’s death is “most popular”. Of course it is the article, and not the death itself. But again the standard vocabulary shows its limits.}

These are a few examples found recently, and I have been seeing such mishaps over and over again in the past months. Did you find some too? And by the way, what could replace “like” and still work in those contexts?

Man vs supermarket

Nice piece of work from Chinese artist Liu Bolin. Is it me or are we witnessing more and more Chinese artists making the news, and coming up with really cool work? Seems it is time to revise the “chinese can only copy” motto that was current in the Western world for the past decades.

More pictures here and here.

Why countries should innovate

Two recent examples of why, as a country, you should always try to take the lead on technological innovation.

The first comes from the recent ICANN decision on allowing “.anything” domain names. A US organization decides what is possible or not for the internet, puts a process in place that will force all the world’s companies to bid for their own names at the price of 185’000$ a pop. Most countries must be wishing they had more input on the way the internet’s address system is working.

 The organization that governs the Domain Name System, ICANN, voted this week to launch the new application process for an unlimited number of new top-level domains, despite lingering doubts and objections from trademark owners and others. This has been controversial, first, because many believe that ICANN has failed to justify the need for new top-level domains; second, because some fear that an explosion of new registries will threaten internet security; and third, because of the vast headaches it will cause brand owners who will face increased costs of monitoring and dealing with cybersquatting. ICANN‘s press release calls the development “historic” and “one of the biggest changes ever to the Internet’s Domain Name System.”

Link

The second example comes from the list of content removal requests from governments Google received over the past semester. LeMonde has interesting facts on the rate of approval these requests receive.

 The US dominate the rankings, with 4061 requests of which 94% received a response. Brazil is second, with 1804 requests of which 76% received a partial or complete answer, followed by India with 1699 requests (79% of response), UK (1162 requests, 72% response) and France (1021 requests, 56% responses).

Link

If Google was French, would the government have more success on its requests, from 56% up to what the US get (94%)? Probably.

This shows again that for governments, it is critical to understand the impact of technology much faster, because these tools inevitably end up having an effect on our daily lives. Innovating is the only way to “control” progress. It reminds me of the old law of online conversation: you can’t control it, so improve it. Become a better voice to become the voice that will be in charge tomorrow. Let’s hope this important lesson of the first phase of the digital revolution will be learned.

The invisible rule of proportionate attention in online communication (and why social technologies are not magical)

I send a lot of emails. I post a lot of messages on my blog or on Facebook.

One thing I have noticed over the years: there is an invisible rule that seems to reign on the online world, regardless of the medium: the more care you put in a message, the more chance there is it generates an answer (email) or interaction (social networks).

Take email. When you send a newsletter, if you get 50% of people opening your message (as we do at Lift) you can be pretty satisfied. The industry standard is more around 20%. That is what you get for sending messages that have not been specifically written for the recipient. They feel that, and have no pressure to answer whatsoever as it has been sent to thousands of people.

In a typical one to one communication, answer rate is probably closer to 95% as long as you write to people you know, and who are at the same “level” than you.

Now for my editorial job at Lift, I get to invite pretty busy people as we try to convince them to join us for the conference. We don’t always succeed in having them, but at least I get around 80% of answers to my messages, positive or negative. I get this answering rate by carefully crafting my messages to make the recipient feel I value him or her, as I invest a lot of my time in reaching out. If I send a quick message, it is likely I will not get an answer. If I take time to research the person I am contacting, find out what their recent projects are, add a few personal sentences about the city they live in, the chances for a response get much higher.

My point here is that it seems that electronic communication is not totally deprived of context. When you talk to someone, your body language gives hints of how you feel, and influences the answers you get. In electronic form, these implicit messages can also be conveyed. I care about the discussion we’re having, I’m willing to invest time in reaching out to you. That matters.

I noticed the same happens on my blog and on Facebook. On the blog, articles where I simply pass a link (as I often do to set them aside for my personal archive) receive little feedback, while longer and more personal articles generate more comments. On Facebook, I have an even more tangible proof. For a long time, the Lift page was managed manually. I would replicate each article carefully, adding a custom message different from the title of the news I was pushing to the community. As soon as we installed an automatic app (RSS graffiti) to republish articles automatically, the number of interactions almost halved. It was the same content, but our followers felt we were not putting as much energy in the process of pushing the information to them. They felt less engaged, maybe less cared for, and the number of interactions dropped.

That’s why social technologies will never be magical. They promise us more personalized interactions with followers, as we know who they are. Truth is, mass updates will always have a different feeling from a message written specifically for a recipient. Nobody can escape the time consuming task of writing personal messages. And if you have 10’000 fans, that will take a while.

Real age vs perceived age

Interesting graph showing how people, at certain age, perceive themselves. As we get older, the gap widens and we seem to feel much younger (green line) than we really are (red line).

Found on pluslonguelavie.net