Thanks to Dave to sending me this link of a widely circulated photograph. It only goes to show that “privacy” is a relative term….sure, most of us have pictures and information that a stranger can’t directly access, but our friends are our enemies in the on-line social networks. General rule of thumb, if anyone can see it everyone will (same goes to the hot cheerleading coach being fired after posing nude with a 15 year old student….the uncensored photo, of course, is widely available if you google it).
Here is the story, that I read from Your Privacy Is An Illusion. Kevin, who was interning at Anglo Irish Bank’s North American division, e-mailed his manager saying that he had a family emergency in New York that required him to miss a day of work. One of Kevin’s facebook “friends” pulled up his facebook account and saw the above photo from a Halloween party that Kevin had attended. Once found, his boss had sent him an e-mail with the photo attached and BCCed it to the entire office. The e-mail exchange is below, as found on the web.
Note: I’m glad that the parties I went to in Worcester (where this event took place) didn’t involve guys dressed up as ferries.
There are arguments out there citing that technology forces social isolationism. I can certainly see this my first year at Rochester Institute of Technology when my freshman year roommate failed out of college after playing video games literally 23 hours a day.
Technology has also created social independence, most notably in 1985 with Aldus’ PageMaker and Apple’s LaserWriter. Desktop publishing was born and individuals, with the technology, were able to create and print high-quality documents.
Technological Independence goes beyond print publishing and into entertainment publishing. Although we have services like YouTube that allow individuals, organizations, and groups express themselves these “publishers” don’t profit directly.
In the music industry we have seen many artists fight with record labels for countless reasons. But only the well established artists were able to break away from the industry and produce their own records for a short while (Elton John, for example). In October, Radiohead parted ways with their label to release their 7th album independently. In Rainbows was released to fans who were able to choose how much they wanted to pay. Was this suicide? PaidContent.org found that 38% of downloaders paid a respectable amount. While the average price was $6 USD, 12% were willing to pay between $8 and $12. PaidContent.co.uk cites Gigwise in quoting an estimated 1.2 million albums shifted hands—putting roughly $4 million into Radiohead’s hands–within a week of release.
This model can be used effectively providing buyers see the purchase as beneficial to themselves, feel secure in making the online purchase, and know that the source is credible.
After watching the Colts on Monday Night Football—more specifically, sitting through 90 seconds of torturous commercials–I had an epiphany: no matter how bad things get, I could always create local(global term here, my region isn’t the only “local” blunder) car dealership commercials. I never understood, and still don’t, why car commercials are made the way they are, I’m not talking about national ad campaigns, but local commercials…. it is very rare that a local dealership does something creative, or even aesthetically pleasing (save, Clay).
The problem does not lie within the ad agencies either—after working a year at my old agency, I constantly saw the struggle to break dealerships away from “starbursts”, midget porn soundtracks, and PowerPoint animations. The above result—and I will admit, after taking an animation class at RIT’s School of Design, it is not easy or cheap to create—is a classic example of what makes me drink.
Great commercial. Using a technique that is similar to RIT’s Big Shot called “painting with light”. A great effect, but understanding that all of those images are created by people swirling lights is mind boggling to understand.
I recently was invited to partake in a Beta launch of Google’s newest acquisition GrandCentral. The product allows you to take several of your phone numbers, and route them to 1 phone….beyond that, however, is its on-line interface that allows you to screen calls easier, be alerted by SMS and Email when you have a message, listen to and download your voice messages online, and even make calls from the web site—this is currently how I am filter freelance phone calls.
The perfect thing about this product is the fact that you are able to, from the web interface, see a detailed listing of your messages, who they are from, how long they are, and able to click to listen to them or download them as an MP3. In my opinion, this is truly going to be the future of telephone services. We currently have a flavor of it with apple’s iPhone messages, but in the years to come, we will certainly be able to go one step further.
