The Latest Revolution in Technologies that Transform Jerry Bryan jerry.bryan@websanity.com www.websanity.com ● http://www.websanity.com/methodology/workflow.htm Some clients: Saint Louis Zoo Fontbonne University The Episcopal Diocese of Eastern Missouri Church of St. Paul & the Redeemer (Chicago) ACLU of New Jersey Standing Partnership International Geochemical Society Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care Society What are “Technologies that Transform?” Beyond increased speed or productivity; disruptive…change the way we do things Don’t replace previous media; they’re additive Pen & paper, printing press, telegraph, telephone, radio, television, photocopy, fax, Internet, Web, email… Now, there are newer technologies More laws = jobs for lawyers Tax reform = jobs for accountants Wikis, Blogs, RSS, Podcasts New communications tools? but also… Virtual Worlds What comes next? And what does it mean to you? How do people acquire, judge, & validate the data they receive in today’s information explosion? Poorly. Reward: rising opportunities Risk: keeping up with technology The Beijing Evening News reported in June 2002 that the US Congress threatened to move out of Washington unless a fancy new Capitol was built It had to include concession stands, a retractable rotunda for daytime sessions, a Dancing Waters fountain, & 55 more luxury boxes The “news” item was lifted almost verbatim from the satirical weekly The Onion. The international news editor for The Beijing Evening News refused to retract: “How can you prove it’s not correct? Is it incorrect just because you say it is?” So… What’s real & what’s not? Next to the news story about the Capitol? “Sexual Tension Between Arafat, Sharon Reaches Breaking Point” Thanks John Kerry, 1971 Jane Fonda, 1972 Death in the Air: The War Diary and Photographs of a Flying Corps Pilot (1933) Confederate sharpshooters after Battle of Gettysburg (1863) Loch Ness Monster, taken by Robert Kenneth Wilson (1934) New ways to get the message out: Blogging RSS Blogs are a new use for the Web Podcasting They extend & take the Web – which we already know & use – in new & exciting directions Virtual worlds YouTube Digg Typical blog features: “blog” is short for “Web log” “blog”: a personal, yet public, Web journal, usually focused on a defined set of topics Focus on posts, not pages Reverse chronological: most recent post at top Posts tend to be short & pithy, though longer essays may certainly be used Lots of links to other sites, often other blogs Date & time stamps tell reader how fresh (or out of date) info is Permalinks: permanent links to posts make it easy to reference specific posts 23,000 new blogs are created every day 1 every 3 seconds http://www.fortune.com/fortune/technology/articles/0,15114,1011763,00.html Blogs are having an enormous impact on culture, society, politics, & business Rathergate 8 September 2004: Dan Rather on 60 Minutes uses memos to “prove” President Bush’s dereliction of duty in the Texas National Guard. Almost immediately after the broadcast, bloggers question the memos’ authenticity brutally & efficiently. CBS’ response? http://www.jeffooi.com/archives/2004/09/september_8_cbs.php CBS News said the documents were “thoroughly vetted by independent experts,” that it was “convinced of their authenticity,” & had acquired them from an “unimpeachable source” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rathergate Ultimately, Dan Rather retired, & CBS issued this mea culpa: “A report issued by an independent panel on Jan. 10, 2005 concluded that CBS News failed to follow basic journalistic principles in the preparation and reporting of this Sept. 8, 2004 broadcast.” http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/08/60II/main641984.shtml 12 September 2004 A user posts on a bulletin board that the famous U-shaped Kryptonite locks Blogs began spreading the news far & wide, with videos demonstrating the trick. Lots of people saw those videos, & read those blogs. ... can be easily picked with a Bic ballpoint pen! http://www.fortune.com/fortune/technology/articles/0,15114,1011763,00.html (Let’s take a look at one of those videos) http://www.engadget.com/entry/7796925370303347/ 16 September 2004 Kryptonite issues a statement that its locks are still a “deterrent to theft”. 17 September 2004 New York Times & AP post stories about Kryptonite locks & bloggers continue to blog. http://www.engadget.com/entry/7796925370303347/ http://www.fortune.com/fortune/technology/articles/0,15114,1011763,00.html Should your organization blog? 22 September 2004 Kryptonite announces that it will exchange locks for free. Who should be the bloggers? This action will cost Kryptonite $10 million What content? (& the company sees $25 million each year in revenue) What kind of blogs? How often should the blogs be updated? Who sees the blogs? http://www.fortune.com/fortune/technology/articles/0,15114,1011763,00.html Some companies encourage employees to blog publicly. It’s a fine line. Companies want employees to be honest, but also encourage evangelism. Readers don’t want propaganda. Blogs need to develop organically Dr. Pepper wanted to promote a new milk drink in 5 flavors: “Raging Cow” They asked 6 teenage bloggers to blog about Raging Cow No money exchanged hands, but they were given free samples & promos Mazda created a blog run by a supposed 22-year-old hipster named “Kid Halloween”. His blog had a grand total of two posts, & both linked to videos featuring the Mazda M3. It did not come off as “authentic” http://slate.msn.com/id/2081419/ http://www.fortune.com/fortune/technology/articles/0,15114,1011763,00.html Bloggers exposed the falsity of Kid Halloween & his blog, & Mazda pulled the site 3 days later. http://www.micropersuasion.com/2006/11/five_critical_f.html http://news.agendainc.com/mt-agenda/content/archives/2004/11/blog_withdrawn.html Publishing a blog is only half the story: what about reading blogs? You can read blogs two ways: (1) visit the blog’s web site Why read blogs? Simple – to acquire information you can’t get anywhere else Bonus: no spam So, try the easy way: Easy enough ... though you will forget at times, & miss something But if you find many blogs of interest, personal visits become impossible With most blogging software, when a blogger adds a new post, an entry is added to that blogger’s RSS file. (2) subscribe to the blogs RSS files are nothing pretty, but you can see one by clicking this icon: <rss version="2.0"> <channel> <title>Scripting News</title> <link>http://www.scripting.com/</link> <pubDate>Sun, 11 Jul 2004 04:00:00 GMT</pubDate> <lastBuildDate>Sun, 11 Jul 2004 23:59:48 GMT</lastBuildDate> <docs>http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss</docs> <item> <description> <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5411741/site/newsweek/"> Newsweek</a>: "American counter-terrorism officials, citing what they call 'alarming' intelligence about a possible Qaeda strike inside the US this fall, are reviewing a proposal that could allow for the postponement of the November presidential election in the event of such an attack." </description> <pubDate>Sun, 11 Jul 2004 16:21:00 GMT</pubDate> </item> </channel> </rss> Using an RSS news reader, one of my partners stays up to date with 200+ RSS feeds. The best choice is a Web-based RSS reading service: Google Reader http://www.google.com/reader People use RSS news readers (also called feed readers or aggregators) to poll RSS files at regular intervals Every hour or so, your news reader queries RSS files that you have subscribed to If there’s a new post, it is copied by the RSS news reader If there are no updates, nothing happens You can install RSS news readers on your computer. A huge list is at: http://www.lights.com/weblogs/rss.html RSS is actually far more important now than just a way to read blogs All sorts of information is now available via RSS The New York Times & many other news sources publish RSS feeds. http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/help/3223484.stm http://news.yahoo.com/rss http://slate.msn.com/rss http://www.eweek.com x Find thousands more at http://www.topix.net x Search for a word or phrase, create an RSS feed of the results, & then subscribe to that feed. Google Alert: www.googlealert.com PubSub: www.pubsub.com Technorati: www.technorati.com Daypop: www.daypop.com x Use RSS search engines to find RSS feeds that interest you www.feedster.com What’s podcasting? RSS feeds that include mp3 files Another way to think about it: radio, but what you want, when you want it, wherever you want it www.daypop.com www.blogdigger.com www.bloglines.com Subscribe to RSS feeds that contain podcasts Once every 24 hours, your podcast client checks for an mp3 file & downloads it if it exists Get a podcast client Windows: iPodder or iTunes Mac OS X: iTunes or iPodder Linux: BashPodder Ideally, it automatically transfers the mp3 to your iPod or mp3 player You listen to it on your schedule Podcasting is growing like wildfire Big companies are starting to get involved ● (Virtual) Reality Thar’s virtual gold in them thar virtual hills! What’s a virtual world? Wikipedia definition: “a computer-simulated environment intended for its users to inhabit and interact via avatars. This habitation usually is represented in the form of 2 or 3-dimensional graphical representations of humanoids (or other graphical or text-based avatars). Some, but not all, virtual worlds allow for multiple users.” Second Life Entropia Universe The Sims Online There Thanks! Thanks! Virtual worlds Thanks! Thanks! Thanks! Thanks! Amazing growth in 3 years Residents December 1: 1,774,387 Residents December 5: 1,814,136 US $ spent last 24 hrs: $655,354 $60 million in user-to-user transactions in 2006 Earning a living in a virtual world Thanks! Example: design & sell clothing Welcome to Club Neverdie Asteroid Resort, Project Entropia Thanks! Thanks! Thanks! 1000 apartments Thanks! Thanks! 20 domes for mining ... Thanks! Thanks! 66 shops + 100 stalls ... & hunting Thanks! 5 nightclubs with live DJs Thanks! Jon Jacobs, AKA Neverdie Thanks! “Club Neverdie” Thanks! Apartments Shopping Mall Nightclub Cover charge Real-life DJ’s Hunting / mining: fees Est. $240,000 profit / year December 5, 2006: a non-profit in Spain placed a homeless teenager in a virtual world. “Second Life and other forms of new technologies can be a great way to connect with young people and make them a little more conscious about the huge population in the real world needing help.” http://www.boingboing.net/2006/12/05/homeless_kid_in_seco.html Landing Lights Park Near LaGuardia, half a square mile, all but abandoned. To save on design costs, the borough of Queens put a digital version of the park in Second Life and asked resident avatars to redesign it. People worldwide are installing water fountains, playground equipment, and refreshment stands purchased from an in-game vending machine. When the airport starts paying $100 million as part of a lease-renewal, Queens will use elements of the online designs for its blueprint. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.05/start.html?pg=11 http://rohitbhargava.typepad.com/weblog/2006/08/a_gallery_of_vi.html YouTube is one of the most popular sites on the Web ... in less than 2 years Exciting new communications technologies are gaining traction Blogs RSS Podcasting Virtual worlds YouTube Digg Try them yourself. Get involved. Starwood Hotels became the first company to open a new hotel brand inside a virtual world Digg drives 100s of 1000s of viewers to web sites Thank you! jerry.bryan@websanity.com Today’s presentation: www.websanity.com/presentations