Embarking on a Marathon (of sorts)

Anyone who is taking, or has taken, Business 2257 at the University of Western Ontario knows what time of year it is. It's time that feasibility projects are due. (Image: Ivey course page) As hard as we have been working over the past month, especially the past two weeks, here we are. About to stay up all night finishing a project that is tediously tricky. I guess we should have expected this.

This isn't the first late night working on this project, but heading into this meeting I know that the sun will be on its way up by the time we're finished. The sun might even be halfway across the sky by the time we finish. I don't know how it is that we all end up in this situation, but it is quite funny that it happens every year.

The Business Feasibility Project, in which we create and evaluate a business venture, is something of a social enigma. On the surface it is very simple and straight-forward, but there are always set-backs for every group and sooner or later we're all in Weldon the night before it is due. I'm starting to think that there's a conspiracy theory here aimed at breaking us down by driving us to this point. How else would it happen year after year?

Maybe students really are that predictable. I'd like to think that I'm a bit more unique and that there is really a conspiracy, but the reality is that we all end up here because we all under estimate the project. Time to go get this done.
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Social Networking or Social Fracturing

I really do enjoy spending some time on Facebook writing on friends' walls or sending messages, but I can't help but wonder if these sites are to some extent de-socializing. (Image: Wikipedia) I raise this question because they all encourage the use of remote communication instead of face-to-face discussion or even calling friends on the phone. To me, as much as I would advocate the utility of the internet to community, this raises alarm bells about how we communicate.

This topic has been tossed around a lot by "concerned parents" organizations and many others to no avail. Apparently, people simply don't see it as problematic for kids to be spending hours on FaceBook. But to put this into perspective, I believe that those who doubt the significance of this need to remember how the time in question was spent before FaceBook and MySpace.

Before the children (and teens) were sitting in front of their computer screens, they would be out and about with friends taking part in far more active pastimes. FaceBook time is increasingly overlapping what used to be hanging out with friends time.

But to stop worrying about the children for a few moments, there are also questions about how these social networking sites affect groups like university students and even older groups. The main concern I have is that the loss of 1-on-1 communication, in an unmediated way, limits how genuine our connections truly are.

When you have the time to look over something you wrote to a friend and get to edit out a bad wording or misstatement, you are mediating something that would have otherwise been communicated unfiltered. The filtration of debate is important because it presents the opportunity for communications to be less genuine because they are so heavily moderated.

Saying the wrong thing before you realize its the wrong thing is a very important part of friendship in my eyes. By removing these Freudian slip moments through moderation, the dialogue becomes a misrepresentation of what you were thinking at the time. So in some ways I believe that FaceBook communications are de-socializing because of this effect. A world where it becomes hard to make a mistake, is not a very human world in my eyes.
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A Top 5: Musicians Who Have Influenced Me

A lot of people think musicians should talk less politics, but I think that it's great. In my eyes a musician can only write so many meaningful songs about love and other feelings -- at some point they need to have some other thoughts. (Image: CBC) I have nothing against musicians singing about love and whatnot, but I think covering a variety of topics leads to more meaningful art; I would equally criticize a band that made music about Communism every song. The bands and individuals I have highlighted in this list contribute something original on a consistent basis. Their music is not just singing about issues; they put it in context.

Without further ado, here's my top 5:

5. Red Hot Chili Peppers


4. The Beatles


3. Rage Against the Machine


2. Tom Morello


1. John Lennon

5. Red Hot Chili Peppers
The Red Hot Chili Peppers are a unique group with a unique sound to match. Their music covers topics such as love, friendship, loss, addiction problems, and much more. Though very down to earth, the Red Hot Chili Peppers create a disorienting world with heavy funk influences. Though their music doesn't typically feature feel-good lyrics, the songs generally have a sense of completion or satisfaction. (Image: Wikipedia)

4. The Beatles
Anyone who isn't influenced by The Beatles is not my type of person. Seriously though, I think we would be hard pressed to find someone who doesn't at least have an appreciation for the influence of The Beatles on music. The Beatles sang about so many important issues it's hard to list something they didn't sing about. Though they didn't usually infuse opinion in an obvious way, they raised issues in ways that got observant listeners thinking. (Image: Wikipedia)

3. Rage Against the Machine
Unlike The Beatles, Rage Against the Machine did nothing to hide their opinions. Though I'm not always in total agreement with the specific messages, the attitude of the band is greatly amusing and empowering. Rage has a totally unique sound that, in much the same was as the Red Hot Chili Peppers, creates a world of its own. Bordering on hard rock musically, Zack de la Rocha adds poetic lyrics in a rap-like style that come across as totally genuine and natural. (Image: Wikipedia)

2. Tom Morello
Going solo as "The Nightwatchman" after the break up and Rage, during and after being part of Audioslave, Tom Morello took on a folksy style and sang of oppression and war. The music is hard to like for some due to Tom's vocal limitations, but the lyrics are packed with eye-opening references that get the gears inside my head spinning. Tom has proven himself again and again in many different genres. (Image: Wikipedia)

1. John Lennon
Again, even though I already mentioned The Bealtes, John Lennon is a great artist and a great thinker. He had a lot of interesting thoughts on many issues and expressed them in totally artistic style. Many people who disagreed with him still listened to him because it was great music. John was funny in both ironic and good natured ways, though usually the former. He's really been a big influence on me in many ways; his music is extremely genuine and stands out to me above all others. (Image: Amazon)
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Take Your Pick: YouTube or Hollywood

No, I'm not literally asking you to pick, or suggesting that one will die in battle with the other. When recently listening to discussions about the "social web" and citizen journalism, I got to thinking that, while some believe we're witnessing an evolutionary step, we're really just playing into the old system. (Image: Digg) YouTube is a great example of a Web 2.0 site that is often directly compared to, what are now called, "old media" counterparts. Some hold the belief that YouTube is a viable replacement for the Hollywood studios, television networks, or broadcast news. This is simply not the case.

As mentioned by Michael Wesch, YouTube's content is not directly comparable to television content by any means. While there is explosive growth in the amount of content, most of the content is not meant for mass consumption. There are a few standout examples of people putting up high quality products for mass consumption (usually created during YouTube contests), but generally the content and production are not that great.

YouTube can provide endless hours of entertainment, but I would not pick it over the few TV shows I watch regularly. Likewise, I would never sacrifice CNN, or more broadly the Associate Press or Reuters, in favour of the Huffington Post or Daily Kos. Though both are great and tend to provide excellent background mainstream press tends to glide over, I would be uncomfortable relying on the Web community to not only produce opinion, but also to gather news as it happens in a credible and responsible way.

What I find more interesting than blogs, YouTube, or collaborative content is the concept behind sites like Digg. While Digg is primarily fed by mainstream sources, users control what content gets featured. What surprises me about Digg is how quickly stories can explode to the top of the list; many sites are competing for that spot and, more often than not, the best site for any given news item usually is the one to catch the wave of Diggs.

In some ways I see Digg as more democratic than citizen content creation because it is not a shouting match to get your voice heard, but a collaborative effort to pick out what's newsworthy or entertaining. It's an entirely different beast, and it's really something special. When it comes to the future of democratic media, I believe it will be the content presentation (via sites like Digg) that is far more valuable than the direct contributions of the blogosphere.

The blogosphere is a great thing in many ways and blogs really are a liberating force in allowing opinions to flow freely. However, what brings order to this is the power of collaborative filtering -- both in the form of Digg and in the form of social bookmarking like Stumble Upon or Delicious. Everyone should have their say as to what's newsworthy.
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Incase You Missed It (I Did): The Budget Got Through

Stephen Harper's government lives to die another day, but how did a threat of non-confidence end up passing 211 to 91? Are we still heading for a massive federal deficit? (Image: National Post) Well, as reported by CBC, the Members of Parliament got down to business and passed a budget. After all the hubbub over the past couple of months, this seems a bit anti-climatic.

The country is still heading towards a deficit, which is projected to continue until the 2011 fiscal year (at the very least). There are plenty of spending initiative to kick-start the economy, which have been so effective in the United States. Of course there are some positive features to note...

Highlighted by the CBC in its article, perhaps the single most important change to the budget bill, is the provision that forces the Conservative government to update parliament on the progress of the budget initiatives. This provides the opposition with a chance to see what's going on, and, perhaps, ground upon which to start a non-confidence vote if the budget is mishandled.

Also of note is the movement by the NDP and Bloc to strike down this amendment when the Liberals proposed it -- though they obviously failed, the sentiment is starkly apparent. Similarly, with a few special exceptions the Liberal party supported the budget in the vote earlier today while the NDP and Blog stood their ground voting against the budget.

Now, while I'm sure there are many of you who dislike the coalition initiative -- and as hard as I try some of you may never hear any of it -- but the opposition should not split like this. In effect, the result is a Conservative Minority against a Bloc + NDP alliance with the Liberals in the middle, effectively holding the power. This is far less ideal in a democracy than a coalition government.

We'll have to watch how this plays out closely. Maybe Ignatieff will make his plans known now that this is out of the way. I find it hard to believe there is no hidden powerplay beyond what has come out today.
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Venturing to the Right

It should be apparent by now that my political ideology leans left more often than it leans right, so I thought I might share with you a recent experience of reading the other side. As you may know, some of the rhetoric is beyond belief. (Image: Brietbart) I like to read a wide variety of opinions -- obviously taking some more seriously than others in the process. In a recent read through the Drudge Report, which provides some of the funniest moments of my days, I came across an article on Obama's move to talk to Iran and Syria. Feeling more adventurous than usual, I decided to take a look at the comments.

The first thing that shocked me was the number of posts with the insane belief that Obama is a Muslim. This type of fear mongering isn't surprising and shows some true ignorance on the part of those that defend this intolerant and hateful point of view or believe it to be true. If any other religion was insulted continuously in such a way, there would be site bans and complaints filed until the site overloaded. Not only has this rumor been proven untrue, it shows how intolerance relies on total ignorance.

It was a bit surprising to see a few divergent voices calling foul on these statements. Sure they were outnumbered by a lot, but those who stuck to it were putting up a fight. Regardless of this tiny minority speaking from the left, many posters simply posted their favourite lines from the right-wing rhetoric playbook.

However, this example shows the weakness of blogs to create an echo-chamber of narrow ideology that drowns out conflicting voices. The same thing obviously happens at left-wing blogs, which I am sure a right-wing reader would point out with the same annoyance I write with now. The problem with the internet is that it makes it very easy for us to pick sites that match our opinion.

If I didn't read Drudge frequently, I would have no clue about the latest liberal-flub I will be hearing about on the news networks and from hard-core right-wing political junkies I talk to. I suppose that there is value in reading the other side of the blogosphere if your nerves can take it. It never hurts to take a look -- well, at least not usually.
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The Blogosphere: Reflecting on a 2007 Snapshot

For several years, Technorati has provided a wealth of data on the development of the blogosphere. After recently reading a slightly dated State of the Blogosphere, I got to thinking about how fast this movement has taken hold. (Image: Screen shot -- Flickr) The State of the Blogosphere posts are by David Sifry, the founder and CEO of Technorati. These posts highlight some of the many statistics his site gathers.

The post I read was from April 2007, but it revealed continuing trends in the blogosphere. The one that Sifry identifies as most important is the tagging movement. I agree with this assessment, and in the nearly two years since this State of the Blogosphere tagging has gained more traction.

What Sifry describes as the "Live web" is built around the ability to tag items. Tags can be broad or specific, but their basic function is simple: tags link items together. Networking pages by common topics through tags is invaluable to the casual browser as it exposes them to a variety of sites by following natural language links.

Social networking has introduced many users to the notion of tagging by tagging people to specific items like photos, videos, or notes/blogs. Media-sharing services, such as flickr and YouTube offer tag-based browsing or encourage tagging to organize content, as demonstrated by the links, respectively.

Since 2007 bloggers have gained on Mainstream Media (MSM). On the day of U.S. Election, a TechCrunch traffic survey revealed 3 non-MSM sites in the top 15 news sites. This shows the power of non-MSM outlets to survive the fierce competition with MSM conglomerates.

For the blogosphere to remain competitive it will need technologies such as tagging to boost the flow of users to non-MSM sites.
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