I was listening to CBC Radio's Here and Now yesterday afternoon when I was struck by a story concerning the new computer fad, Facebook. Apparently, Microsoft bought a piece (1.6% to be exact) of the the social networking mogul for $240 million. Along with with this not-so-large chunk of the Facebook pie (the website is worth around $15 billion and its creator, Mark Zuckerburg is worth almost $5 billion), Microsoft now has a role in Facebook's advertising and future claims to more of the company as it continues to grow and gain popularity - and it will, said Here and Now's technology-minded Jesse Hirsh.
What is even more interesting was the discussion that followed. Hirsh and the Here and Now host, Matt Galloway, talked about this Facebook-Microsoft pairing as the way of the future in terms of operating systems. Indeed, both Google and Microsoft are tending toward programs and applications that allow the user to connect to people, hotels, restaurants, and other services throughout the world (I am thinking here of the ideas expressed in the clever video clip Epic 2015). Hirsh mentioned that Facebook, with its ever growing application options, is used more and more instead of email and as a form of entertainment with games and other interesting features. Why not, Hirsh mused, create spreadsheets and word documents on Facebook too?
Why not indeed! Part of Facebook's allure to major computer companies like Microsoft, is its seemingly indefinite access to marketing information. Users of Facebook can post their activities, interests, favourite books and television shows, and even products they prefer; and now, Microsoft is right there, watching, making note that one of Sarah's (and many others, to be sure) favourite television shows is The Hills. The next time I sign in I might be prodded with ads offering me deals on Hills memorabilia or cautioned not to miss the next episode or informed of Hills related events in my area.
In addition to operating systems and marketing, Facebook is also a massive archive and digital repository. Everytime users add to their profile it is recorded and whoever has access to this added information, particularly photos, can copy it (read: archive it). If the Facebook fad lasts long enough and profiles are accessible 100 years from now, historians, archivists, and researchers of the future will have interesting, detailed, and almost complete accounts of the lives of millions of people (the Toronto, ON network itself contains 900 000 people!). What this speaks of in terms of privacy is probably the subject for another blog.
Today's society, it seems, is very concerned with this idea of documenting and recording everything, especially our daily lives. There's Gordon Bell who undertook a project to digitally archive every photo, piece of paper, and action of his life. Even weirder is Johnny Lechner, a guy who has been in college since 1994 and who is recording every minute of his final (one can only hope) college year and broadcasting it online (you should definitely watch it for a bit).
Obviously people are interested in this kind of archiving - we are posting information on Facebook and other social networking sites, newspapers and magazines are writing about people like Gordon Bell, we are watching (voyeurism?) Johnny go to school, and we are blogging! In 100 years historians are going to use this information to build a framework of and learn about our society. Some people, pessimists, I'm sure, believe that all of this archiving and information collecting will cast a negative light on our time. But they way I see it is that these sorts of websites, Facebook and even Johnny Lechner, connect all of us. If we have the ability to document our daily lives so that others in different countries and cultures can read about it and maybe learn something they otherwise wouldn't have, then why not?
2 comments:
Hey Sarah,
I totally agree with your comments, and thanks for the link!
It strikes me that the contrast historically, while extreme, is with the dark ages. Are we now in or approaching the opposite of the dark ages? The light ages?
While I do value the role that privacy plays, I also embrace the transparency of our age and love being able to read and learn from all sorts of different sources that are in many causes non-authoritative, and thus engender an even greater critical capacity on the part of the reader.
It seems the early days of the Internet involved all of us stumbling around in the dark. I'm so glad we're entering the next phase in which we can finally see each other and understand the social side of this so called new media.
-jesse :)
Two things jumped out at me here: "If the Facebook fad lasts long enough and profiles are accessible 100 years from now, historians, archivists, and researchers of the future will have interesting, detailed, and almost complete accounts of the lives of millions of people"
and
"In 100 years historians are going to use this information to build a framework of and learn about our society. Some people, pessimists, I'm sure, believe that all of this archiving and information collecting will cast a negative light on our time."
1. There is no guarantee that this stuff is going to last... that these items, this minutiae of so many lives, is going to be accessible in any sort of coherent form 100 years from now - floppy discs are obsolete, what about all this digital info? Facebook goes bust and.... where does all that information go? WHO is archiving this? Does Facebook have professional archivists working on this stuff? Who is archiving your blog? What happens if you realize a few years from now that you may have said something that could be potentially damaging - you try to erase your blog... you can't. Google has cached multiple versions of your blog. But where is Google keeping the backup of the caches?
2. Regarding your pessimist remark - perhaps my pointing out the obsolescence of our current digital world is viewed as pessimistic. However, as a professional archivist being faced with the challenges of developing a digital archive within a physical archive - it is not as simple as mere optimism vs. pessimism. Again, who is going to archive this stuff? Digital records are not stable, which means that backups of current digital data need to be constantly migrated to the newer/faster/better form of technology.
Who is going to pay for this?
Facebook is NOT a "massive repository". "Repository" implies permanence or stability (repose/stillness) -- Facebook, and blogs, are constantly changing - which version is the true version? Which day has the right stuff? Who is downloading private information? There is no permanancy in the digital world.
You say that obviously people are interested in this kind of archiving. I would argue that it is not "archiving" at all. It is straight up exhibitionism and voyeurism. I also suspect that many people are blindly posting things on Facebook and Myspace, etc. without thinking about it's potential for future (harm OR good).
Insta information, insta gratification.
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