inverge 08 from telephone to tweetup
DESCRIPTION
This is the PowerPoint of a lightning talk given by Amber Case (@caseorganic) at Inverge: The Interactive Convergence Conference in Portland, Oregon on Sept 4+5th. NOTE: This was a 10-minute compressed presentation. From Telephone to Tweetup: an abbreviated history of technology and social exchange The invention of the telephone ushered in an era of ‘on-demand’ social connection. These conversations were freeing, but were still limited to location and time. As communication technology matured, telephones became detached from their cords and were allowed to travel with their users. This detachment from location allowed conversation to happen in more times and more places. As the amount of time and space between nodes of connection decreased, the intersection of rapid news methods such as blogging, mobile technology, and chatrooms begin to merge. This convergence allowed dramatic increases in the ability to rapidly convey information to others. Instead of engaging with one person at a time, many are now capable of talking at once. No where is this more prevalent than on Twitter. It has found ways to connect communities, stave off suburban isolation, and warn of earthquakes before medical help can access them. The distance between individual and community will continue to decrease, and those products and services which decrease the amount of time and space it takes to create an action will be the most successful. Actions and devices will become lighter and lighter, and the social will continue to become more and more mobile. The convergence of various technologies will result in rapid learning and communication never imagined before. http://inverge.com/featured-speakers/amber-case/TRANSCRIPT
Every bullet point in this presentation is
less than 140 characters.
This is because the text of these slides will also
be broadcasted on Twitter at the time of this
speech.
In this way, the speech can live in two
places at once.
To one audience here at Inverge.
And also to 600+ followers on Twitter.
[@Inverge] [#Inverge]
You can follow @caseorganic to see
it in action.
[this is a waiting period because the Internet connection here is
probably slow]
@caseorganic
Hello.
My Name is Amber Case.
I am a Cyborg Anthropologist.
I study the symbiotic relationship between humans
and computers…
And the psychology of space that is created by online
environments.
Or, how the online experience is “experienced”.
In Anthropology, one could call this a
Digital Phenomenology
…
We live in a community that
increasingly transcends time and
space.
It is our relationship with technology that allows us extended
capabilities.
Right now, search engines and people are interacting with your social profiles
and websites.
While you aren’t there.
And with social networking sites like
Twitter, you can watch many conversations at
once.
…
Consider Letter Writing, the first
Internet.
The message to response ratio was very slow, but it
was social.
Enter the Telephone.
Thus began the era of ‘On Demand’ social
communication.
This made the world very small.
You could stand on one side of the world, whisper something, and be heard
on the other.
But to those who had never experienced a telephone, the device was as foreign as the Internet once was in
1993.
The fact that a human could speak into a
machine and hear a voice on the other side gave the appearance of
schizophrenia.
Over time, the strangeness of the new dissolved into formal
society and the landline telephone started to get along
with humans.
Those living in suburban communities were less
capable of reaching actual members of
society on a daily basis.
…and the telephone allowed them an escape from the
isolation of industrial modernity.
But the telephone was limited by the
length of its cord and its proximity to a
phone jack.
So along came the cordless
phone.
It was free!{yay!}
…to run around the house…
So then the Cell Phone arrived on
the scene.{take that!}
While it was the least rooted to
place,
The Cell Phone did not offer information
transparency.
It only allowed one conversation at a time
(excluding 3-way).
Cell Phone + Text allowed decentralized message access and multiple recipients, but limited message
transparency.
Then Twitter happened.
It was not rooted to place and
time.
It allowed multiple communication channels and
recipients.
Users were praised for contribution and
helpfulness to those in their network.
Why does it work?
Twitter is a centralized technosocial hybrid
that asks a single question that can never
be fully answered.
…
What
Are
You
Doing?
The question is asked by all, to all.
Socialization is aided by machine.
The time and space it takes to absorb and
disperse information is compressed.
Twitter takes advantage of the 4th Dimensionality
of the Internet.
[Analog] [Demonstration]
Lets look at some Architectural
Theory
“Our daily existence is normally filled with short walks and
passing through interfaces. It is not the number that we
remember but rather the poor quality of them and the time
spent in moving through them."
“It is not the number that we remember but rather the poor quality of them and the time
spent in moving through them."
“Interference interchanges must be fast, convenient,
comfortable, without undue effort in a controlled
environment.”
The General Theory of Relativity
The shape of space makes people more, and people create
the shape of space.
The Analog World is full of Friction
The level of Friction in the Digital world
has far less.
Online, we are capable of
innovating in a frictionless
atmosphere.
There are dangers to this.
Frictionless development
becomes cancerous if not restrained.
Too many features/innovations reduce
overall value.
LIKE FACEBOOK.
Now, lets talk about highways.
Highways are giant projects requiring
high levels of funding and
cooperation.
To dig up a highway and move it costs millions of
dollars.
But rerouting a path online takes a few minutes with a 301
redirect.
People, when compressed, can do more in less time and less
space.
Actions flow to spaces with reduced
activation energy and barriers to entry.
Humans and Technology Co-create each other through an
Actor/Network of technosocial interaction.
“In the search for itself and an affectionate sociality, it easily gets lost in the jungle of the
self…”
“Someone who is poking around in the fog of his of his or
her own self is no longer capable of noticing that this
isolation,
“This 'solitary-confinement of the ego’ is a mass sentence. [Ulrich Beck, 40 in Bauman’s Liquid Modernity 2000:37]”
[So Technosocial Interaction is about
Transcending the silos of Mental Isolation]
Hello
The key to the semantic web is to always reduce the
steps in user action.
Twitter engages the user in ways
that do not decay.
HelloQuickTime™ and a
decompressorare needed to see this picture.
HelloQuickTime™ and a
decompressorare needed to see this picture.
Husband on Google Street View
Old map
QuickTime™ and a decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
@caseorganic On Social Sites Everywhere
Thesis: “Cell Phones and Their Technosocial Sites of Engagement”
Available @:oakhazelnut.com