digitally numb

Checking out (of) location-based social networking

After reading some glowing reviews, a group of friends walk into a new restaurant. Prior to being seated, the first thing they do is pull out their Smartphones and “check-in” their location. 5 minutes later, they’re seated and the menus arrive. Not a word is exchanged but the Smartphones are in action again (checking recommendations on what’s good on the menu). I’m not even going to bother getting into all the updates and photo taking that follows during the meal. I hope you get the picture. Do you see anything wrong with it? Depending on whether you’re a social media bee that’s perpetually buzzing (and loves the addition of geo-location, check-ins and mayorships to the mix) or whether you’re not so eager to broadcast your daily whereabouts, your answer may range from “nothing” to “everything”. I personally am intrigued by the location-based social networking trend, but not impressed enough. In fact, I’ve thought long and hard about the present and future data capabilities of location-based social networks, as well as the privacy implications and potential benefits of social media in general. I do understand why people use and love these services, but I just see no value in it for me yet.

I’m obviously no Luddite. I work for an Internet company, I blog, use Twitter, Facebook, etc. and I love my iPhone (probably a little too much). But I’m also very conscious of the big role these services and devices like the iPhone are beginning to play in my daily life. It’s getting to the point where it sometimes feels like my iPhone is a portable life support system that’s there to feed my insatiable need for real-time information. The more apps I use, the more active I get on social networks, the more irresistible is the urge to pull out my iPhone and check in on my digital life and the ever-expanding ocean of information on the Internet (while checking out of my real world surroundings). Currently, the only saving grace is I can still choose where to draw the line between my daily life and my online participation — I can disconnect or “slow down”. The problem with location-based social networking is that disconnecting is not really a viable option when the very purpose of these services is to blur erase the lines between our offline and online lives.

Another problem with location-based social networking is that all the apparent benefits of a data-driven life could easily turn into a burden, where instead of ever living in the moment, we’re constantly attempting to construct the perfect moment or busy “planning serendipity”. As Aldus Huxley put it so well “Even the best cookery book is no substitute for a bad dinner”. Now Huxley was obviously not talking about location-based social networks and their impact on our perception, but he was right about the fact that we tend to put too much weight on symbols, information and knowledge to the point where we start to believe they are somehow more real than what they stand for. Huxley wasn’t the only one who was concerned about the problem of being overtly influenced by words, knowledge and concepts already established. Jiddu Krishnamurti (a close friend of Huxley) said “Freedom is found in the choiceless awareness of our daily existence and activity”. Krishnamurti’s core philosophy was all about liberating the mind from the burdens of memory and allowing it to appreciate spontaneously of the present moment. We’re quickly moving further away from this concept of freedom because not only do we have complete access to our own memories via the Internet and geo-location based services, but we can also tap into the collective memory and knowledge of our friends and social networks. This is obviously a double-edged sword, because the more you know about the everyone’s thoughts, experiences and whereabouts, the more you are influenced to act based on the information rather than follow your instincts.

This is not only about location-based social networks. Unfortunately, we’re marching towards a world where absolute dependence on data will be commonplace and eventually, we will come to accept that there won’t be a clear separation between the “real” world and the virtual universe of information. The price we will pay is having to manage the impact of knowledge becoming an unnecessary weight on our experiences.

It’s probably a futile effort, but I’d rather stick with spontaneity, live in every moment, experience real coincidences and actually discover new things. A discounted latte is somehow not a compelling enough incentive for me to give that up just yet.

The Social Data Balancing Act

Is life so boring that you need to turn it into a game?  Millions of people seem to think so and that’s why companies like Foursquare, Gowalla, Brightkite, Loopt and others are the new start up darlings. To the uninformed, these services appear to be similar to Facebook or Twitter, but only scarier, because you pretty much broadcast your precise geo-location every time you “check-in” somewhere in the offline world. Facebook may be busy spreading its social graph around the Internet, but foursquare and others are actually building a social graph in the real world (which probably explains why Facebook is also jumping onto the location/check-in bandwagon sometime soon).

Of course, none of these services are only about boasting about your active social life by broadcasting every place you visit. The gaming mechanics aspect of it turns routine visits to your gym of local coffee shop into a competition with others (and a marketer’s wet dream). The game encourages you to visit new places, add tips to places you visit, learn more about your friends and yourself. Users seem willing to share more data as they get more engaged with the services. This isn’t all about fun and businesses are seeing real value here. Just ask foursquare and their recent partners like the Wall Street Journal, Bravo, Pepsi, Time Out or the Financial Times. The loyalty and location-based marketing opportunities here seem endless. But where is all this heading?

Data!

Continuously improving the gaming mechanics involved (adding new badges, rewards, etc.) is going to be an important part of keeping users engaged and attracting new ones, but as the user base of  companies like Foursquare grows (they recently crossed 1 million users), the real  success of these businesses will hinge on their ability to mine the rich data that is being assembled by the minute.

A lot of people tend to think that the privacy issues here are less important because users proactively choose to broadcast their location by participating in such services. However, it all really depends upon what these services do with the data (or the social graph) they assemble. At this point they can pretty much do what they want, but as we’ve seen from recent examples, those actions are not without its consequences.

What companies like Foursquare decide to do with the data can either:

• directly benefit their users: improve their understanding of their city, friends and themselves;
• indirectly benefit their users: great marketing offers, discounts, freebies etc.; or
• offer what appears to be zero user benefit: share it with third parties who may in turn do whatever they please (whether good or bad).

Is this a privacy issue? Yes and no. It’s what I prefer to call the social data balancing act. On one end of the scale is the value proposition for the user/consumer and on the other end is the value proposition for the business. Of course, the two value propositions are not mutually exclusive, but achieving the right balance is the hardest part.

Here are some of the data choices that lay ahead:

Enhance the consumer value proposition:  Use the social graph data to generate a personalized analytics dashboard that provides rich insight and context into each users offline activities based on what they share on such services (places they visit, people they hang around with, emotions they feel). I’m not talking about the simple statistics and history they report now, but layering context and insights to identify patterns and make recommendations on how users can act on the data to improve their lives (e.g. recommended things to do or people to spend time with to make their day more enjoyable, based on previous behaviors). Think of it as a secure, user-specific performance dashboard that can help people optimize their lives based on data! Read this fascinating article from the New York Times about the potential value of a data-driven life.

Enhance the business value proposition: Mine the social graph data in the manner outlined above and assemble detailed psychological and behavioral profiles of all the users of such services with the goal of segmenting them into categories that can be packaged with data assembled from other sources (online and offline) to build rich profiles and insights that can ultimately be shared with marketers and other third parties for a price.

To be honest, it’s probably not even a question of choice. The real question is how all (or some) of the above will get done in a manner that balances competing interests, while ensuring the growth of the location-based social media business model. No matter how ridiculous the location trend appears to non-users, if you think about where all this is heading, you will realize that there could be some social value here. The bad news is that extracting that value will require some careful maneuvering through the murky and often stormy waters of privacy, consumer rights, responsible data use, the role of advertising, etc.

Let’s get this right

Social data will continue to grow no matter what, but we can use it to either enhance or disrupt our lives. If we somehow get this right, location-based social media businesses can not only be profitable, but can also create amazing consumer experiences that help their users live happier and better lives.

Ultimately, let’s hope we all come to realize that turning life into a game may not be that bad an idea after all.

Related Post: Managing the privacy impact of Internet microcelebrity culture

The Value of Over-Sharing?

This New York Times article about the “too much information movement” will probably alarm a lot of people (at least those that don’t follow every new social media trend). But I have good news. Those that avoid these services have nothing to fear when it comes to their privacy (for the most part) and those that choose to participate are doing so because they truly believe the benefits outweigh the privacy risks. Over-sharing is not a new phenomenon, but what was missing was a medium to convey the information efficiently to potential receivers. One can argue that the Internet and social networking is leading people to become more comfortable with the idea of broadcasting their lives to friends, family and strangers (and that’s a bad thing). However, without users that are willing participate in this mass information sharing explosion, there would be no YouTube, Facebook, Twitter. Foursquare or Blippy. The question is, why do some people choose to willingly over-share, in spite of the obvious risks involved (limited control over how long such information is retained, who it is shared with and how it is accessed and used)? I think the answer is simple. The one’s that do so have to and need to, because they desperately want to be heard.

In this globalized world which is accelerating the flattening of social and cultural identity, the individual has to struggle to stand out in the crowd of civilization. Social media changes that (at least conceptually). The over-sharers can now be themselves and boast about their generic taste in music, their love for romance novels, their weekend bar-hopping adventures and any other minute piece of information about who they are and what it is that makes each one of them a unique individual. Who cares about people whining about the loss of privacy? They now have control over their personal identity and the way the are perceived by others in the world. They may not be that unique but it must feel good to be handed the control panel of your own personal broadcast channel — your own powerful personal PR machine.

As Freud put it in the book Civilizations and Its Discontents, every individual is driven by an instinctual need to experience pleasure and avoid pain. We collaborate with others to form civilizations because it helps this basic selfish drive. When we collaborate with others we have a greater chance of survival and ways to avoid pain caused by external factors (natural elements, other human beings, etc.).  However, the dependence created by civilization comes with its drawbacks. Civilization imposes limits on the individual in the interest of the common good. It imposes norms and laws that restrict the uninhibited individual pursuit of happiness. Therefore, although we rely on civilization to protect ourselves from the hostile world we live in; civilization itself causes displeasure because it restricts our individuality and our instincts. It’s a dilemma that even Freud didn’t have good answers too, but he did a great job of clearly articulating the problem.

What does this have to do with over-sharing on the Internet? Think of over-sharing as a little win for the individual — a win against having to consume mass media and be another faceless and passive consumer. The Internet and social media gives you an instant audience to nourish your sense of self, to carve your own identity, to be heard (even if you have nothing important to say) and be in control of how the world at large perceives you. If over-sharing makes millions of people feel better about themselves, if it helps them be heard and form new social connections with like minded over-sharers, if it helps them achieve pleasure an avoid pain, why worry?  Why should anyone live unheard and unnoticed? Of course the providers of such services need to offer users with the ability to control the information sharing and not suffer data breaches. But why should we stop anyone from having a voice? Further, when over-sharing becomes the norm in society, many will chose to break away from the herd mentality and maintain their sense of self by curtailing their information sharing habits. It’s an endless cycle and we will do what we have to to meet our fundamental need for individuality. Because without a personal identity, what is the point of privacy? As the saying goes, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” Admit it, you don’t want to be that tree.

Related Post: Managing the privacy impact of Internet microcelebrity culture

Managing the privacy impact of Internet microcelebrity culture

You’ve probably heard the news by now. The Internet (and social media specifically) is making us all attention-seeking wannabe celebrities, killing privacy and giving birth to an age of voyeurism. But how did it come to this?

We sowed the seeds that are leading us to this inevitable end thousands of years go — by developing visual and oral communications mediums such as signs, language and writing (the earliest mediums that provided humans with the means to communicate by storing and transmitting memory and speech outside our bodies). In ancient times, you had to be a king, saint or God to achieve celebrity status, but media and communication technologies, starting with print and later film, radio and TV changed everything by fueling the process of democratization of celebrity culture. Mass media distribution enabled celebrities to emerge amongst numerous sectors of society such as politics, science, academia, sports, etc. Then the Internet arrived and not only did it make the lives of existing celebrities more accessible to the masses, but it also turned passive consumers of media into active producers. Tools like blogging, podcasting, digital photo and video sharing handed out the keys to a new media universe for free and celebrity status became anyone’s for the taking.

In many ways, the allure of celebrity appeals to our basic human need to have a voice, connect with others, be recognized and influence the world around us. Further, the Internet created only one barrier to entry into this new participatory culture — our willingness to disclose our opinions, talents, interests, affiliations, whereabouts and other identifiable information about our private and social lives for the chance to be heard. As Marshall McLuhan accurately pointed out; “Publication is a self-invasion of privacy” and as Internet technologies for creating and transmitting media flourish, mobile devices become the primary communication tool and geo-location services; facial tagging and augmented reality technologies become ubiquitous, no one will truly be able to escape this phenomenon. The outcome will be a world in which everyone is recognized, well-known and observed by groups of people on a daily basis (either due to our direct actions or those of others).

The subsequent broadening of our social spheres and the associated loss of anonymity may lead to benefits such as honesty, transparency, collaboration and altruism, but it will not come without its negative consequences. We will all struggle to manage our reputation by not only curtailing certain thoughts and actions, but also by paying for reputation management services to help us enforce limits on what others say and share about us. Some will embrace the attention and even try to profit from it, thereby blurring the line between self-expression and commercial behavior. Disputes over intellectual property ownership of media created and collated by the new breed of consumers-turned-producers, as well as claims of deceptive and unfair advertising practices will inevitably follow. In addition, concerns over the mining of our disclosed opinions, talents, interests, affiliations and whereabouts for advertising purposes will not abate, as marketers struggle to combat the rising tide of attention scarcity and audience fragmentation.

Assessing the potential socioeconomic consequences of the democratization of celebrity culture is important, but we must not sidestep the core dilemma between the human need to be heard and our value for privacy. Although certain basic concepts of privacy are shared amongst individuals, cultures and nations, we cannot deny that the notions of privacy vary and continue to evolve as personal and social norms and attitudes change. Hence, we should work to ensure that all media and communication technologies that empower us to create and share also enable us to control the flow of information. This will help us choose our own desired levels of privacy, rather than having multiple confusing standards imposed upon us.

Ideally, we all need a simple volume knob for every piece of data we choose to share, where each level on the knob represents a different level of trust in our social sphere. For example Level 0 would represent the individual itself and every subsequent level could represent a customizable group that is lower in the individual’s trust hierarchy. The levels could range from family, close friends, extended relatives, casual acquaintances, colleagues, trusted brands, unknown followers and then everyone else. If new media and communication technologies allowed us to easily define and implement our own personal codes of privacy in this manner, it would go a long way in helping us prepare for some of the challenges that lie ahead.

In a essay about the death of mainstream pop music, the Scottish artist and writer Nick Currie (a.k.a. Momus) wrote the words “In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen people”. This quote is not only an intelligent play on the famous Andy Warhol quote, “In the future everyone will be world-famous for fifteen minutes”, but is also an accurate reflection of current trends.  If the democratization of celebrity culture and the social media explosion are indeed redefining our notions of privacy, we need simple tools to help us balance our needs and values. The power to be heard should be accompanied by the power to control our voices; as we all become Internet microcelebrities, to a potential audience of millions, thousands, hundreds or even fifteen people.

Social media, privacy and morality – will the Internet make us better or worse?

A lot has been written and said about some of the negative impacts of social media that range from privacy concerns to harming children’s brains. These concerns may be valid (I have mine too), but the voluntary loss of privacy that comes with being active on Facebook, Twitter or Foursquare may have some unintended benefits. As blasphemous as this may sound, if you’re really looking for a silver lining here, there is one to be found.

Firstly, no one can deny that the primary driver behind social media participation is still largely our own selfish need to be heard and connected. Aren’t we all just self-promoting narcissists trying to build our corporate or personal brands and the only ‘social’ aspect we care about is the attention we’re getting from others? This is probably true, but the success of social media itself seems to contradict this assumption and is evidence that we all are not only satisfying our selfish needs, but are also providing some value to each others lives. If our primary motivations are purely selfish in nature, how is this even possible?

I think it has a lot to do with morality and moral intuitions. As psychologist Jonathan Haidt put it so well, “just as our tongues guide us to good foods and away from bad foods, our minds guide us to good people, away from bad people”*. In other words, it may be possible that the reason we thrive (in spite of ourselves) in these new social environments is because we tend to adopt moralistic behaviors that curtail our selfish motivations. I’m no psychologist, but with the exception of a few celebrities, long term social media popularity and success is not only dependent on being interesting and engaging, but also on following some basic moral principles such as not harming others and treating people with respect. In some ways, the more moral you are in your social media behavior, the more likely that you will be heard, appreciated and recognized in today’s crowded social media landscape. Let’s take Twitter as an example — it’s a service that seems to have an unwritten moral code ingrained in concepts like Retweets and the Follow Friday hashtag. It’s these simple manifestations of reciprocal altruism in social media that has in a small way, helped services like Twitter grow at such exponential rates.

Coming back to the issue of privacy, as we make the conscious choice to share more, we as a society are likely to grow more comfortable with blurring the boundaries between our public and private lives. Consequently, we will cope by growing more conscious about how the thoughts we share and actions we perform, whether offline or online may be stored and broadcasted for consumption by others. Managing our own personal brand and reputation will become critical. This combined with the fact that we will form new emotional attachments and connections online, may end up bringing about out a lot of good in us. When you know you’re being watched by people that trust you, aren’t you more likely to be more honest, transparent and respectful? Further, the broadening of our social spheres will be a great incentive for us to collaborate, cooperate and display altruistic behavior with more people than ever before. How can that be a bad thing?

I’m not implying that privacy becomes a non-issue because we will all behave nicely to save face. There’s still a lot of work to be done around establishing the right balance that meets individual notions of privacy. However, I’m just hoping our moral compass continues to play an important role in guiding us through this challenging journey.

You are what you tweet — be discreet!

The digital revolution has ushered in the apocalypse for some and a rebirth for others (depending on which side of the old/new media fence you happen to sit on). The old media ways have been left behind to choke on the dust kicked by empowered consumers, as they sprint ahead and embrace the ever-expanding array of new media consumption mediums and channels. Yes, this is great — this is progress. Not only do we have access to so much more information, but it’s also mostly free and accessible everywhere. Most importantly, now we can all contribute to this new media universe – blog, tweet, upload, tag, share and become your own little media empire!

Not unlike what the origin of language and then writing did to human beings thousands of years ago –- the power to transcribe thoughts and communicate instantaneously, across geographic and cultural boundaries in this manner is leading to huge personal and social transformations. The difference is, in the offline world, we could expect a lot of what we said and shared during our lifetime (for better or worse) to be often counterbalanced by the problem of inadequate data storage & retrieval capabilities (the limitations of human memory). In the pre-Internet days of the offline world, we were mostly reliant on every social interaction, new friendship or acquaintance, good or bad deed, and every moment spent communicating through various mediums during our lifetimes to eventually add up to shaping how others perceived us. Unless you were a published author or generally someone famous, or influential with access to mass media communication channels, you were limited to gradually and painstakingly building your personal legacies within your social circles over your lifetime. As we all know, that’s no longer the case anymore, because we’re all media producers now and we’re all are beginning to shift our offline lives online. You can share what you’re thinking, doing, eating, buying, your opinions on anything and everything online –- not just with words, but along with images, moving pictures and sound. All this in an environment with infinite storage and retrieval capabilities

With every tweet, status update, blog post, photo or video uploaded, you’re essentially leaving bits and bytes of yourself (some of which you may never be able to take back). Just because you forgot about what you tweeted yesterday and just because tomorrow you may abandon Twitter or Facebook for the next shiny new Internet toy, doesn’t mean what you’ve shared is forgotten. As search technologies keep evolving, there’s going to be very few places for the information you’ve shared, and consequently for you to hide. This is not meant to scare you or convince you that social media and over sharing should be curtailed (who am I to say that?). Create and share by all means –- just remember that with this new found power, you’re not only interacting, making friends, entertaining yourself and others –- you’re building your digital legacy, which will live on long after you’re gone.

5 real problems in an augmented world

Augmented (hyper)Reality: Domestic Robocop from Keiichi Matsuda on Vimeo.

It’s finally here — our view of the real world need not be limited by what our naked eye can see. Gadgets and terminals are not the be-all and the end-all in our quest for more information, real time access to data and most importantly, a reliable secondary storage mechanism for our memories. Why miss out on the physical world if you want to be immersed in and enjoy the benefits of digital media? Why not just augment the physical world with it? Yes, it’s the new buzz word, but Augmented Reality is here (and here to stay). The potential for this technology is undoubtedly endless, but what we’ve seen so far has mostly ranged from gimmicky and cute to somewhat useful. Nothing groundbreaking so far — no mass adoption of wearable technology or any of the entertainment possibilities. However, it’s just a matter of time when some of these implementations become part of our daily lives. If you hate how people are constantly distracted by their iPhones and Blackberry’s, brace yourself, because it’s about to get much worse.

Augmented Reality, just like any other technology will have some incredibly beneficial uses and some absolutely useless ones. However, all forms of Augmented Reality will likely be accompanied by some risks. Here are just five potential problems we can expect in the years ahead:

1. Profiling: The use of facial recognition technology, combined with geo-location and augmented data will lead to a seamless integration of our online and offline lives. As a result of these developments, a person walking around in the physical world will no longer just be a person, but will be their physical self along with a digital profile and other information that either the person itself or others make available online. Imagine walking into a social gathering and getting ignored by a bunch of people because you have self-identified yourself with a political or religious affiliation that they don’t particularly care for. Or worse — imagine being singled out for additional security screening at the airport because of it.

2. Unauthorized Augmented Advertising: Advertisers and tech companies are drooling over the possibilities of monetizing objects & spaces in the physical world by augmenting digital ads onto them in real-time. Think of the physical and intellectual property rights implications if the technologies that drive augmented advertising do not come with inbuilt controls — controls that would prevent advertisers from augmenting their marketing messages on building surfaces and other physical objects (including private or public property or other trademarked or copyrighted material) without adequate permission.

3. Augmented Behavioral Targeting: Ad targeting based on real world behavior using a combination of geo-location data & publicly self-disclosed information via social media services is just around the corner. For example, let’s assume you live in Los Angeles, travel a lot and have been checking into the local airport via services like Gowalla, Brightkite or Foursquare every time you leave town. Let’s also assume you have been checking out websites selling home security systems lately. Thanks to your online activities and your eagerness to share, you get served an ad that states “Given your busy travel schedule & the rising crime rate in LA, don’t you think it’s high time you installed a home security system?” (Actually this example may not be that bad considering sites like Please Rob Me have emerged). It does raise questions though. Who would have to provide privacy notice and choice in this scenario and how would you control what information is collected and how it is used for advertising that blurs the boundaries between your physical and virtual worlds?

4. Physical danger: Augmented Reality, like any mobile media technology presents some real physical safety issues. If you think mobile phones are currently a distraction while driving a car, think of an augmented windshield feeding you driving directions, along with more data about your surroundings than you may need. Or imagine crossing a busy street in an unfamiliar neighborhood, while simultaneously using an Augmented Reality interface to look for that hot new restaurant, checking out what people are tweeting about it and being bombarded with ads through it all.

5. Spam: Yes — where there is a marketing opportunity, there will be spam, deceptive advertising techniques and social engineering tricks to dupe gullible consumers into paying for things they don’t really need. If you think too many legitimate Internet companies (that are sensitive to your privacy concerns)  are harvesting all the data you publicly share on the Internet, there are even more scammers out there doing the very same thing. Be ready to be tricked and duped by too good to be true augmented offers in the real world — offers that will lure you in ways that unsolicited email from online pharmacies or belly-fat banner ads only wish they could.

The above list is by no means an exhaustive one. The dangers (much like the benefits) are far too many to be cataloged in one blog post. However, the sooner we start preparing for some of these problems, the more we increase our chances of arriving at timely solutions. There are a lot of smart people out there working incredibly hard on building the exciting future of augmented reality. Let’s hope there are also a few that are working at least half as hard on solving some of its incidental problems.