Thank You

This concludes the Global Pariah project - at least, for now. Thanks heaps for your responses! And please, continue feeding the spiral of dependence on social-networking an online interactive media. It gives us a lot to talk about.

Connected: An Autoblogography

Directed by Tiffany Shlain

http://connectedthefilm.com/

*Froths at the mouth*

Google+ provides soundtrack for Facebook Death-March

Just when you thought people couldn’t get any more antisocial, the ironically dubbed “social networking generation” expands once again in a last-ditch effort to cash-in on the popularity of online music technologies, and subsequently keep users interested in a rapidly developing phenomena.

After enjoying the success of squillions of users, trillions of networking apps, groups, pages, and games, and bajillions of dollars in advertising and rights-distribution to the makers of a recent Hollywood blockbuster (I may be exaggerating with these statistics a bit, but you get the idea), Facebook’s shortcomings have begun to surface in a very public fashion. The first, obviously, would be the recent scandal whereby Facebook was proved to be tracking users as they roamed the Internet, even once they had logged out of the website. The second, as documented by top blogging sites the world over, has been the lack of integration between Facebook and other popular online music technologies. Google, being the savvy entrepeneurs that they are, have struck while the iron is hot, and are using these openings as the foundation for their new social networking site, Google+.

            While we are perfectly aware that no-one (except you) particularly cares about your personal playlist, we are also aware that the ability for a social networking program to keep track of such a personal collection would be the final frontier in addictive online behavior. Sure, Facebook users can upload videos and links to music hosting sites, so that individual tracks can be shared with your loyal subjects via the mystical realms of cyberspace. But, answer this honestly: how often do people actually watch the videos suggested by others in their newsfeed? Surely it happens, but not as often as it could. This could be because, while social networking pages are designed to be, well…social, the sharing of individual tracks via links from another site altogether (Youtube) seems a little amateurish. Enter, the next generation of social networking, Google+. This site, which follows in the footsteps of gmail other successful Google apps, is said to be the latest competitor for Facebook’s social networking crown, possibly due to their focus on attracting global music aficionados who feel let down by Facebook’s shortcomings in the musical arena.

The question on everyone's lips/fingertips: Which will win the power-battle, Facebook or Google+? 

            Google+ ‘Hangout’ is the latest talk, attracting huge acts such as Black Eyed Peas frontman and solo artist Will.I.Am, who ave begun promoting it as a place to attract and interact with fans. Turntable.fm and other upcoming softwares such as StreamJam have, until now, been ahead of the curve in terms of allowing fans to interact with artists and eachother, but now Google has picked up the trail. Google+ will not only allow people to interact in forums and share/access playlists, it is also used as a storage space, and with the eventual globalizing of Google Music Beta (currently only available in the USA), will work in a similar manner to iTunes Genius in allowing educated music suggestions…all within the confines of the average social networking framework. So, get registering! Facebook may very well be in its’ way out – and Google+ will provide the soundtrack.

Red-Faced: Facebook's awkward admission to tracking device leaves world reeling.

This brings the term "Facebook stalking" to a new level.

It was unveiled yesterday that epic social-networking site Facebook, after enjoying the success of more than 8 million users, a Hollywood Blockbuster and addictive qualities that are on par with heroin (to some), Facebook has been monitoring and tracking users as they visit other websites. The embarrassing admission has left Facebook fighting to defend itself, outlining that these measures were taken to promote "good instead of evil."

Obvious question for the day is this:

Is it ever fully justified to breach someone's privacy?

For more information (it's a pretty big scoop, really), check this out (sourced from http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2112198/facebook-promises-fix-tracking-cookie-issue):

  "People database Facebook has told a security hacker and blogger that it will fix the privacy issues that he exposed on his blog last weekend and told it about almost a year ago.

Yesterday we reported that Nik Cubrilovic had revealed how Facebook tracks users via cookies, even after they have logged out. Even though the firm told him, and us, that it only uses these cookies for good, and not for actually tracking users, it has promised to fix the issue.

Cubrilovic told the Australian newspaper that during a long telephone call Facebook promised him that it would change its system within 24 hours. Although it claimed that it presently does not use the information for identifying users it could in the future, and because of this Cubrilovic was pleased with the result.

"They're sending the information to their servers, even when they are (users) logged out. It's a question of what they do with it," he said. "They may not do with it now, but in two years' time, they might introduce a new feature that accesses it."

- Dave Neal, The Inquirer, Yesterday (27 September, 2011).

So it's official. But look on the bright side! None of us do anything particularly interesting online, anyway.

Looks like we're not alone in treating Myspace as the latest "pariah!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69Xv7if_DSU

Bye-Space: The life and death of the world's former favourite.

When someone first told me that Myspace was on its' way out, and that Facebook was the "real deal" of online social networking, I wondered to myself if the so-called "social leaders" from my high school were smoking crack. What could possibly be cooler than the ability to play with HTML code (thereby inserting trendy backgrounds and glitter graphics in every available corner of my profile), blaring music at innocent viewers through the embedded media player, and displaying your friends in order of their importance (or lack thereof) for the world to see?

The answer was simple. Literally. Facebook, offput by the kitchy "hip-ness" of Myspace, decided that to appeal to the older (sorry, "more mature") generations among the masses, a general layout and simple, streamlined design was ensured to provide durability to a fabled old idea.

In other words, by simplifying the concept and layout of Myspace, Facebook gave a dying idea a new, more sustainable life.

A quote from our friends at Read Write Web (http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/myspace_is_dead_-_the_internet_is_growing_up.php) sums this up in a nutshell - posted in April 2009:

"Posters on the wall, teen magazines, boom boxes playing the same stupid songs over and over again (automatically!) - that's not a sustainable situation, by definition. That's teenage living and that's what MySpace built its huge site on. Just like being a teenager, MySpace is something that most people grow out of. Today marked an important point in the internet's move beyond MySpace."

Wikipedia also documents this decline (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myspace), and you know if it's a Wiki page, it must be good:

"From 2005 until early 2008, Myspace was the most visited social networking site in the world, and in June 2006 surpassed Google as the most visited website in the United States. In April 2008, Myspace was overtaken by Facebook in the number of unique worldwide visitors, and was surpassed in the number of unique U.S. visitors in May 2009. Since then, the number of Myspace users has declined steadily in spite of several redesigns. As of September 2011, Myspace was ranked 91st by total web traffic."

I guess the main question for this week is an obvious one:

Are all social networking platforms to be considered "fads" that will die off over time, or are some more sustainable than others?

Food for thought - Facebook seems to be keeping things pretty steady, but you have to wonder how long this will last. Perhaps the downfall of Facebook's apparent untouchability will be the series of radical changes the site has undergone since it's original conception. People tend to get grumpy when the powers that be screw around with their familiar stomping ground (home page), and the growing number of "I WANT THE OLD FACEBOOK BACK!!" fan pages stands as a testament to this. A matter of face article found at http://www.webcoursesbangkok.com/blog/how-facebook-will-die/ (entitled "How Facebook Will Die", which is as informative as it is...blunt) raises this point for the disposability of social networking sites.

"If you can say and do anything, how does what you do have meaning? Facebook is saturated with rubbish in every format you can imagine. Nonsensical videos, pointless pictures, irrelevant notes, pointless groups and baren fan pages."

Can't argue with that. Maybe Global Pariah (a University project structured around social media platforms) should just call it a day - give up completely, as these technologies are not going to be around in a few years anyway! Although, a few of decades ago they ran courses on how to use typewriters..so I guess we'd better just suck it up.

Until then, (pardon the contradiction) visit our Facebook page - while it's still marginally "trendy" to do so.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Global-Pariah/246384095382121

Televolution: Why the humble telephone will never die.

Let us ask you something; and, be honest. How many of us are actually afraid of using the telephone? Not just afraid of going over your phone bill limit, but actually physically petrified of speaking to another human in an intimate, voice-to-voice setting? It sounds silly, but it's quite common. There's even a medical term for it (so you're all covered, according to the laws of Wiki self-diagnosis): Telephobia.

Let that resonate for a minute. TELEPHOBIA. Dun dun duuun.

It seems that, in the last ten years, statistics for those suffering communication problems have gone up, due to the done-to-death-theory that "technology [is] advancing exponentially while the human organism has remained virtually the same for tens of thousands of years." (http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/how-primitive-human-desires-cause-social-problems/). But, why has this affected us so terminally? Phones and computers have essentially become one, and going by the aforementioned theory of human dependence on technology, this should make talking on a phone a more enjoyable experience! Phone's have almost had "phases," from manually connected, clunky, rotating, operator-driven ear-pieces, to the fabled Zoolander phone (about the size of a thumbnail, famed by Ben Stiller). It's one of the few technologies that has changed very little in terms of function, since it's creation a hundred-odd years ago. I guess the question for this week's topic is:

When will the phone, like video tapes, records and typewriters, become obsolete?

Presuming that this will actually happen is a bit of a stretch, I'll admit. But, it's still an interesting can of worms, if you're looking to open one. The form of the telephone in its' various forms has always followed its' function. When small phones were "in," there was no reason to have a bigger one (big phones indicated old phones, because the Internet was still a newfangled hippy concept that was never going be used, let alone integrated into the humble mobile). iPhones, despite being the size of surfboards compared to their ancestors, are indeed the perfect size, as the internet has become it's major-secondary, if not primary function.

The physical attributes of telephones these days have changed immensely since their original envisionment, except for one thing; no major improvements have been made in their function; that is, having a good old-fashioned chit chat.

Sure, there's Skype and Facetime. But they leave you feeling slightly...in limbo. It's not quite talking to a real person, but it's not quite got the intimacy of a phone conversation (you don't need to speak as much, when you have the freedom to convey things through facial expressions). Speaking as someone who has been in a long distance relationship, the weird, sleepless, timeless hours spent on Skype in the name of "catching up" with a loved one always ended in cramming hours of normal human relationships into a 20 minute slot. Because you can "see" the other person, there is less reason to be descriptive - intimate - with your speech. Fine for work, if you're in different places; not fine for maintaining a healthy relationship. So the argument for the video-phone is still ongoing..

The resurgence of the humble voice-to-voice telephone call has been an interesting one to document, and has overcome all means of Facebook, MSN chat and texting due to its' ease of use, old-school intimacy and, the fact that it has gone relatively unchanged for decades. I, for one, used to loathe talking on the phone: then I began University, got two jobs and started losing touch with everyone very quickly. Telephobia is for the time-wealthy among us, who can afford the time to text, MMS, wall-post, email and tweet. To the time-poor masses who still use the phone with relative ease: Global Pariah takes its' hat off to you! The rest of you should give it a try again; the best thing about speaking over the phone is, that it doesn't bite.

Follow our project on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Global-Pariah/246384095382121

(N)etiquette Lessons for the 21st Century

Whenever the topic of courtship comes up in conversation, I like to refer back to a story told to me by my grandmother about the way she met her husband, back in the good days. She was seventeen, and her night in shining armour (and my future grandad) would ride his bicycle 4km across town in the middle of the night, and throw little pebbles at her window. Now, to me, this sounds a lot more romantic than the modern day equivalent, i.e. Texting, ‘Liking,’ Facebook stalking, actual stalking (compliments of location-dating apps such as OKCupid, Grindr, Qrushr, etc) with barely any actual conversation, interaction, or old-school, face to face scintillation to speak of. Much like the deterioration of the English language from Shakespearean times, we are witnessing a deterioration in etiquette due to an over-dose of “social” apps and technologies. (The irony is not lost on me that I am writing this from my laptop, to be posted on a social blogging site, whilst ignoring my fellow classmates). But, I guess, behaviours change due to environmental factors all the time – it’s only natural. However, the question remains:

Do you feel that it is more important to maintain your face-to-face relationships, or your relationships online?

While we are on the subject of etiquette in relation to environmental and social changes, it is interesting to delve into the etiquete manuals of the late 1800’s (this one was taken from  http://www.teapartydiva.com/1888-etiquette-rules/). It is impossible not to draw comparisons between the strict social guidelines of the old days, compared to the weird etiqueyye expected of online social-networkers in the days of technology. In the absence of a “new school” etiquette manual, I decided to take a stab at modernizing the tea-party guide myself (in the context of successful social media interaction, of course).

1888: You should dress quietly at your own entertainments, thus avoiding the possibility of eclipsing your guests.

2011: Less clothing = more friend requests.

1888: You should speak without arrogance to those serving you. They may be as well born as yourself.

2011: Speak openly, as you will probably never meet half of the people you are “friends” with.

1888: You should strive to live down all false and evil reports, but never to contradict them.

2011: When in doubt, join a Facebook "like" page that asserts your point of view on a person or topic.

1888: If you have been sick yourself, say as little about it as possible, and never allude to it at the table, where you will receive little sympathy and perhaps render yourself offensive to all who hear you.

2011: "Awww, hun!" is a perfectly acceptable amount of sympathy expected from a whiney status-update regarding mucous and phlegm.

1888: You should shun boasting. It is vulgar.

 2011: Peter Smith updated his status to: PARIS iS AMaZING ThiS TIME OF YeAR!!!!1!!11!!!!!

1888: You should reject dresses that are too low necked and those that have almost every vestige of sleeve cut away.

2011: Uploaded photographs of low-cut garments promote Facebook "stalking," and often replaces the need for people to meet face-to-face.

1888: You should, if old, show consideration for the faults and follies of the young. If young yourself, be gentle and respectful to those of riper years.

2011: Peter Smith liked the group “The awkward moment when Mum cooks a shit dinner.

The evolution from etiquette to “netiquette” is certainly a factor that defines our time, and there is no question that we look back and snigger at the backward social customs of generations passed. I wonder what they’ll say about all of these “advances” of ours in 10, 20, 50 years.. That is, if people remember that face-to-face interaction needs to occur before reproduction does.