KMD

Wouldn’t it be nice sometimes to just shut it off. Turn off the world? Both personally and professionally.

I was reading the post from “Its All Here” about Instant Access.  Many people have been saying for a long time we are now, never  unconnected.  Does being constantly connected cause a person to have less of a quality of life? I think so. “Its All Here” writes about his ties to his phone and he only uses it as a phone. I am the same. I don’t have a blackberry or data based phone. My access to mobile web is usually very short and expensive since the technology I have doesn’t allow for a simple clear connection. I agree with “Its All Here” about feeling a loss when you don’t have your phone on you. But what do you really loose? For the most part you wouldn’t miss anything important. Yes, having a cell phone on you at all times comes in great for real emergencies.

Travel agencies are selling vacations by telling potential travellers they have places to disconnect (and yet the hotels are all set up with wi-fi).  I was watching an episode of “Mad Men” where the main character’s needy client actually couldn’t reach him (despite the many calls to the main character’s home waking up the baby).  That would not happen today. Most workers are connected 24/7, even non-workers are the same. Workers are even connected on vacation.  Due to the instant response expected by most everyone today, can a company ever allow their workers a true vacation where they are completely unconnected and not actually working? Looking toward the future it does look like that will be the case. The old saying of not bringing your work home with you is no longer applicable.

Verizon is finally stepping up their game. I’ve been patiently waiting for the iPhone’s exclusive agreement with AT&T to expire so that Verizon can sell the iPhone to their loyal customers. PATIENT. I am not normally so patient, but I refused to switch over to a new carrier simply to get a super cool phone.
Watching the Yankees last night I saw a commercial for the Droid. Verizon’s answer to the iPhone. They don’t show much, but after some research this could be the data based phone I’ve been patiently waiting for.
I sure hope so, I’ll keep you updated.

I don’t agree with Nicholas Carr’s assessment that people are acting like computers. When he says “we’re beginning to process information as if we’re nodes” I think he’s still many years off. I think that would be more applicable when our generation gets to retirement age. Too many from the baby-boomer era do not utilize or know how to utilize the internet in order to make his assessment come true.

I don’t think people think like computers yet either. If you were to take “The Inmates are Running the Asylum” article from a couple of weeks ago, he would also heartily disagree. His point was that people didn’t think enough like computers which is why they still have such difficulty using computers in every day life and why User Interface Design in the author’s mind is so important.

Are we moving toward a single super computer? Yes, this may be the only point on which I agree with Carr on. But I am not sure I understand how that will work. Seeing so many people using the Google components like Docs, Email and Picasa, it makes sense to begin combining everything. Isn’t that why the bundled voice, TV, and internet packages are so popular with telecommunications companies? Having everything in one place makes it much more convenient than having to pay and organize three separate bills.

Does the consolidation of information reduce the freedom of the internet? I think it does, and this should be broken up because you don’t want the oligopoly that Carr speaks of. That is why they broke up AT&T back in the day. They were too powerful and controlled too much to allow competition. This is not good for the consumer.

But I think the conspiracy of the hour, that Google’s mission is to create the PC network is a little far fetched. You’d have to get Google and Microsoft to get along. And we all know that is still a dream.

What are “Ethics”? In business, “ethics tell us what actions are acceptable or unacceptable in our attempts to achieve the goals”. The economist Milton Friedman believed it was the goal or responsibility of a business to make a profit for its shareholders. It seems like the bankers of today have taken that theory to an extreme, without any concern for the consequences of their actions. I think there has been a loss of ethical consideration in today’s world. Advertising companies need to employ a level of ethical and/or moral restraints on their collection of data.
I am surprised it is stated in the NYTimes article that “traditional media companies, which collect far less data [than internet companies] about visitors to their sites, are increasingly at a disadvantage when they compete for ad dollars”. Considering the amount of money put towards advertising, how are they not collaborating or purchasing these information data companies for their advantage? How can you be a media company these days without an internet POV.
I always wondered about Nielson. My family was a Nielson family for 2 weeks once. But I really can’t imagine the information derived from those surveys is very accurate. I remember not being able to remember what I was watching and filled out what I thought I was watching. It seems like a no brainer to use people’s searches and breadcrumbs as likely instances of their likes and dislikes. Story’s comment from advertising executives says it all to me: “Some advertising executives say media companies will have little choice but to outsource their ad sales to companies like Microsoft and Yahoo to benefit from their data.” There is an ethical concern regarding data collection information. What is privacy anymore? When you can pay for anyone’s personal information for $25. There should be some regulation imposed on companies that collect personal data. More and more these days companies are being hacked and private information is being lost due to poor handling.

I watched the “Human Lobotamy” video assigned to us this week and felt like I was watching either a Michael Moore “movie” or a commentary about death panels that are going to knock off my grandmother after she finishes baking that apple pie.

So I thought, well maybe we’re only hearing one side of this story. Maybe the telecommunications companies are not the devil, despite the very cute devil horns drawn on their logos in the video.

I began my due diligence. I found a very interesting descriptive article from Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-CT), pretty much giving me the lowdown on Net Neutrality, because I honestly didn’t have an opinion nor did I realize this was a hot button issue until this most recent lecture. I had heard of it, but I had not been motivated to explore it any further.
From Joe:

The move to place restrictions on the owners on the networks that compose and provide access to the Internet, to ensure equal access and non-discriminatory treatment, is referred to as “Net Neutrality”.

Net Neutrality – the general principle that owners of the networks that compose and provide access to the internet should not control how consumers lawfully use that network; and should not be able to discriminate against content provided access to that network.

Personally, my favorite definition was from the CTIA:

In layman’s terms, net neutrality is about the politics of envy: if a website cannot afford certain bells and whistles, then its rivals should not be allowed to acquire such enhancements. In economic terms, net neutrality represents the prohibition of any contracting for enhanced service or guaranteed quality of service (qos) between a broadband service provider and an Internet content provider.

The Opponents to Net Neutrality

From what I can see the opponents to Net Neutrality are the Internet Service Providers. In the United States these are telecommunications and cable companies like Verizon, AT&T and Cablevision.  According to Lieberman’s informative PDF,

Those opposed to the enactment of legislation to impose specific Internet network access or “net neutrality” mandates claim that such action goes against the long standing policy to keep the Internet as free as possible from regulation.  The imposition of such requirements, they state, is not only unnecessary, but would have negative consequences for the deployment and advancement of broadband facilities.

For example, further expansion of networks by existing providers and the entrance of new network providers, would be discouraged, they claim, as investors would be less willing to finance networks that may be operating under mandatory build-out and/or access requirements.  Application innovation could also be discouraged, they contend, if, for example, network providers are restricted in the way they manage their networks or are limited in their ability to offer new service packages or formats.
Such legislation is not needed, they claim, as major Internet access providers have stated publicly that they are committed to upholding the FCC’s four policy principles.

The FCC’s principles are not law, and in no way are the ISP’s required to follow or adhere to them. Basically the ISP’s are saying that if they are regulated they will lose investments and financing to further build out networks and access requirments.  I personally find this argument hard to believe since ISPs like AT&T and Verizon are eligible for government assistance.

“Creating a solution for a non-existant problem.”

The ISPs also make the claim that the proponents of net neutrality are making mountains out of molehills. There hasn’t been any proven discrimination on the internet against content providers or on how broadband is delivered.  I hate to disabuse them of the notion that simply because there have not been any registered complaints, doesn’t mean there aren’t unhappy consumers out there.  And according to several accounts there have been recorded issues:

LIVE EXAMPLES OF TELECOMM ACTIONS AGAINST NEUTRALITY

AT&T censored a Pearl Jam concert in August 2007 because it disagreed with the content. Verizon Wireless blocked text messages from the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League in September 2007.

AT&T had called the incident a mistake, as did Verizon Wireless, which said it wouldn’t happen again.

ISPs believe the introduction of new technologies will counteract potential anti-discriminatory behavior by creating competition through satellite, wireless and power lines.  With the advent of Skype and Google Voice, it seems as if the current ISPs are attempting to stifle these companies to their own benefit. Perhaps I am reading the situation wrong, but I think that disallowing the Google Voice application on their broadband phones or only allowing the VoIP services over the internet seems to be discriminatory.

***Proponents of Net Neutrality – from Joe’s paper

Internet access providers will become gatekeepers and use their market power to the disadvantage of Internet users and competing content and application providers.

While market forces should be a deterrent to such anti-competitive behavior, they point out that today’s market for broadband delivery is largely dominated by only two providers, the telephone and cable television companies, and that, at a minimum, a strong third player is needed to ensure that the benefits of competition will prevail.

The need to formulate a national policy to clarify expectations and ensure the “openness” of the Internet is important to protect the benefits and promote the further expansion of broadband, they claim. The adoption of a single, coherent, regulatory framework to prevent discrimination, supporters claim, would be a positive step for further development of the Internet, by providing the marketplace stability needed to encourage investment and foster the growth of new services and applications.

CONGRESSIONAL INTERVENTION

The argument over Net Neutrality is once again in front of the U.S. government and everyone have their lobbists in place.
Concern over whether it is necessary to take steps to ensure access to the Internet for content, services, and applications providers, and consumers, and if so, what these should be, has become a major focus in the debate over telecommunications reform. The ISPs don’t think they should be regulated, that they haven’t been discriminatory yet and that is proof enough they are not going to be.  If there’s not a problem, don’t fix it they say.

In the 109th  Congress both the House and Senate Commerce Committees examined the issue in conjunction with their efforts to revise existing telecommunications law (H.R. 5252, S. 2686). Additional stand-alone legislation offering a wide range of approaches relating to the net neutrality issue was also introduced in both chambers.  Some have also called on a strong role for antitrust enforcement to address the net neutrality debate. The House Judiciary Committee’s Telecommunications and Antitrust Task Force held an oversight hearing, on April 25, 2006, to explore net neutrality issues relating to competition, innovation, and nondiscriminatory access. There is another oversight hearing on Oct 22, 2009 – called by the FCC’s chairman.

*************Can there be a “radical form of non-discrimination”?

CTIA-The Wireless Association® believes policymakers should take a cautioned, reasoned approach to any discussion on Internet regulation. No prescriptive regulation in this area is necessary to facilitate the continued evolution and innovation of broadband services – especially with respect to the wireless sector.

WHO ARE CONTENT PROVIDERS?? We are. Big companies like Google, Skype and Amazon.com as well as you and I. Though in a much smaller format. We consume the content distributed by Google and Amazon and they are claiming this could be interrupted or censored if net neutrality regulation is not passed. In a way it seems like both sides are really trying to protect their own bottom lines and we, the consumers are just a passing after thought (as usual).

Proponents of net neutrality believe that ISPs will force content providers to purchase different levels of broadband service in order to produce their content. ISPs claim they already provide ehanced QoS:

“Broadband service providers currently may offer enhanced QoS to content providers in the form of managed hosting,  local caching of content in nearby data centers, and prioritization of traffic at the IP packet layer. ”

Online video game providers (WOW and EverQuest) currently purchase enhanced QoS – are they blocking enhanced QoS to smaller online video game providers? Has their been any evidence of that?
SLAs regulate the hosting service for content producers no matter the size.

Net neutrality is especially important to companies like Netflix and Amazon.com, which offer movies over the Internet, and to Skype, which offers VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) telephone service. Those bandwidth-intensive services compete with broadband providers’ own video-on-demand movies and phone service.

Otherwise, the rules might discourage emerging wireless applications that the CTIA believes will be critically important, including traffic management, health care monitoring and energy conservation.

Mobile users also might find their bandwidth squelched, as a result, said Guttman-McCabe, which could affect Web browsing and streaming video.

AT&T doesn’t like VoIP – http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal_tech/iphone/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=220301382

Allowed it only on their 3-G network on iPhones.

COLLUSION

AT&T’s latest decision has no affect on Apple’s denial of the Google Voice application for the iPhone. The application makes it possible to use one number to manage and receive calls from multiple numbers. AT&T has said it played no role in Apple’s decision not to offer Google Voice. Apple’s stand is under review by the FCC.

Genachowski and other Democrats argue that the proposed net neutrality rules will prevent telephone operators from blocking their user’s ability to access VoIP services running on their network and cable MSOs from hampering access to online video applications.

Read more: http://www.fiercetelecom.com/story/republicans-rail-against-fccs-net-neutrality-proposals/2009-10-07#ixzz0TGrd70YN

TREATING INTERNET LIKE ELECTRICITY??

Can you treat the internet like electricity and charge by metered broadband? I’d be screwed.

http://www.fiercetelecom.com/story/verizon-metered-broadband-horizon/2009-09-30

INVESTING IN THE INTERNET

The ISPs are fighting for private investment in their companies and products. They claim increased regulation will detract and make investment companies less inclined to support new ventures.  Has the strategy of unfettered private investment in the Internet really worked so well? According to the Communications Workers of America, the U.S. ranks 28th in download speeds, fully four times slower that South Korea’s 20.4 megabits per second. Japan’s second at 15.8 mbps.

The report also said, “The US has not made significant improvement in the speeds at which residents connect to the Internet, our nation continues to fall far behind other countries. People in Japan can upload a high-definition video in 12 minutes, compared to a grueling 2.5 hours at the US average upload speed.” If the ISPs are not doing their job now, what are they chances they will do them when they are regulated?

Skype – Leader of Net Neutrality

In nearly every country, the debate over net neutrality always boils down to the same basic themes, Skype said. Traditional phone and cable companies of those nations have seen their businesses shift from providing voice and video to providing access to the Web. The companies that make content and services for the Web–like Skype, Google, and Yahoo in the U.S.–are challenging the traditional business models of the network service operators amid the seismic shifts in the technology landscape.

“The great majority of companies that operate our nation’s broadband pipes rely upon revenue from selling phone service, cable TV subscriptions, or both. These services increasingly compete with voice and video products provided over the Internet. The net result is that broadband providers’ rational bottom-line interests may diverge from the broad interests of consumers in competition and choice,” Julius Genachowski [Chairman of FCC] explained in his speech Monday, announcing his proposal for new rules.

A company like Skype offers the voice and video conferencing services – part of the bread and butter of traditional network operators — over the Web for free or cheap. Today, Skype says it is blocked on some wireless networks and therefore is fighting along with companies like Google for rules that would require operators to let them in.

The carriers argue against rules that govern what they can and can’t control on their networks. They say that they need to be able to manage traffic to prevent congestion that would slow access for users.

Collins and Libertelli [Lobbyists for Skype] saw that the tension between Web service companies and network operators was heating up. In 2005, carrier Madison River blocked Internet voice service Vonage on its networks. In 2006, a push in Europe to adopt guidelines for how internet carriers could operate their networks was “met with hostility,” Collins said.

So in 2007, Libertelli filed a petition to the FCC seeking to apply the same rules for telephone lines — that any device and technology can be attached to phone networks – to wireless networks. The petition was pushed aside by former FCC chairman Kevin Martin, who announced that he wouldn’t take it up at a wireless trade group conference in 2008.

What did I come up with then, are the telecommunications and ISPs innocent of the Devil mantle thrust upon them? Not exactly. Are they trying to continue to make profits for themselves and their stakeholders? Yes. But I agree that it shouldn’t be at the expense of consumers. Companies like Verizon and AT&T are trying to take the easy road first. It will not work and they will (hopefully) be defeated by Congress.

After reading the Old TV News Guy’s post “Hard Lessons Learned”, I found myself clicking through to the “Lessons from the Rocky Mountain News…” text of the speech by John Temple.

It is sad to read about the demise of such a talented newsroom and paper. It is hard to believe in retrospect that so many mistakes were made over the course of 15 years. It seems as though their views were so myopic that they couldn’t see past their own front page. Getting down to Temple’s “Lesson #7″ I had to stop and really think about where else this is happening.

“If you want to compete in a medium, you have to understand it.”

Looking around at the entertainment industry, I think that they still do not understand the web.  My experience has been that media companies love to love their interactive divisions but still do not want to wade too deeply into the pool for fear they will realize they cannot swim.

I’m not implying media companies should jump at every web trend that comes along. But I do think that investing in an obvious future isn’t throwing money away.

There is one point in the speech though where I find the fault does not lay with the newspaper company. The development of the newspaper’s new video site by a contractor should have been created with SEO and Google in mind.  At the time of the development, 2005, the extent of knowledge around SEO, while not necessarily fully developed was understood well enough to make this oversight huge on the part of the contractor.   So in this part, I have to disagree with Old TV News Guy’s statement:

“That’s what we’ve been reading this week…the need to be end-user driven, not let techno-designers be primary.”

In this case, the techno-designers” should have been aware of the importance of SEO driven development, and the newsmedia company was attempting to reach their end-users by promoting a collaborative video element to their newspaper.

Write an overview of user needs for your project and how they are being served today.

At this time a true beer lover does not have a home on the internet to locate places that serve or sell good beer in their area.  The current sites whose main function is providing all sorts of useful (and not-so-useful) information about beer do so in a haphazard way. They provide some information but true beer lovers’ ultimate question is, ‘Where can I buy this stuff?’ The pre-existing sites for beer lovers  do not seem to address this fundamental question in any sort of structured way.  Some sites have a forum where the site’s users can discuss issues such as this, but it is not a searchable database with mapping enabled or any other ancillary capability. They are bereft of immediately useful links or information.

What do beer drinkers need? They need an easy URL to remember. They need simple user experience. They need to be able to search for locations in a specific area that carry a wide selection of good beer.  They should be able to add a review of this location and add new ones.  Related content on the site should be easily accessible and well laid out..

The only site that seems to have a searchable database of locations is BeerSuggest.com.  It is simply a list though, of establishments that sell beer.  The function is there for people to review each place and add new locations but since the site is new, there is not much user generated content yet.  Still it does provide some  baseline for the database functionality of our site.

Easy URL – currently the major “Beer” sites are:

1. Realbeer.com

This site brings the user to a site that was obviously developed by someone with ADD. To have an advertisement in the highest trafficked area of a site is just bad design.  They have the search bar clearly placed on the left, but when used (I searched “Lambic”), the results were similar to those new Bing commercials.

1. Beeradvocate.com

This one of the better sites. It contains a lot of the newer features like user comments and Twitter posts.  It contains a community forum and Calendar of events but is highly concentrated on the accompanying magazine.

1. Ratebeer.com

This site forces you to dig deep to find useful information on beers. They have a nice “Beer of the Day” section.  The rating system is similar to ones seen on similar wine rating sites. Simple and clear, but still crowded by text advertising.

1. Beerchurch.com

The user is looking for a site to find out information about beers and where to find them.  Suggestions:

obsessedwithbeer.com

wheresthebeeronline.com

stateofbeer.net

2)      Simple design and user experience.

Many of the current Beer sites (specifically those listed above) are too complicated or busy.  Homepage should be direct and point you to main sections of the site; specifically Search, News, Blog or the Map.

3)      Search – by type, by location

Beer lovers want to know where they can find the beer, near them or where ever they are going. They also should be able to search by types – Lager, Stout, Ale, IPA – and the beers should be categorized.  They should also be able to search by type of location. Brew pub, bar, beer distributor, supermarket, etc.

4)      User Generated Content

1. maps
2. blog
3. comments/rating
4. news
5. events

I think the addition of a Map with user generated content would be a major improvement to any Beer aficionado site.

I am not sure if anyone else got extremely frustrated reading the assignments this week. But if the author of “The inmates are running the asylum” was anywhere next to me when I was reading pages 3-17, I probably would have gotten violent with him.

I know the point he is trying to make is that if interaction design was utilized during the development of many products and technologies, the world would be a better place. Perhaps. But for god’s sake, this guy complained about EVERYTHING.

I searched for the commercial online, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. The closest I came was this article on “How it Works”. It was about a car navigation system, where the driver was following the navigation system’s directions and took a left too early. Drove right into someone’s yard through a fence. A. Cooper would blame the navigation system. I blame the driver. And I think the lack of blame on the driver is a symptom of an endemic problem in this society. No one accepts blame for their actions. They would rather blame the computer design. We are beginning to expect computers and machines  to think for us.

A. Cooper seems to think that with interaction design, computers can and will, one day, do that. But should they?  We are human. We have brains, for a reason, we were given the ability to think and reason. Granted, many do not utilize this ability but it is there for the taking and usage.

“A fundamental truth about computers: The may tell us facts, but they don’t inform us. They may guide us with precision, but they don’t guide us where we want to go.” This statement makes me want to smack someone on the back of the head who states it. Duh.

A. Cooper uses the example of the tragic flight 965 that flew into a mountain because the pilot chose the incorrect landing path sequence as a representation of why computers are to blame. That the computer should have known that was not the correct landing path, that it should have warned the pilot that it was not the one he wanted. Perhaps it should have popped up and asked the pilot if it was SURE he wanted ROMEO and not ROZO. Well it didn’t. Computers are not personal. They are not made to make assumptions.

Later in the article, the author is once again angry at a computer because it keeps aggravating a user because it pops up windows to ask whether or not it wants to save a document. This section made me very angry because again, the user is not in the wrong in the author’s mind because the computer should innately know that the user wants to save or not save the word doc and the name it wants to save it as. Computers are not mind readers.

The calculator is another perfect example of humans getting too lazy for their own good. Don’t get me wrong, I couldn’t have gotten through high school without one, but not being able to do simple math in the real world is not the fault of the calculator. It is the simple fact that I have relied too heavily on a computer to do the work for me.

Seriously, Cooper can’t use an ATM without raising my ire.  Is it really the ATM’s fault you choose savings over checking despite the fact you don’t have a savings account at that bank? NO.  Cooper would probably have been writing about the horrible design if the situation was reversed and it did NOT provide the three options of Savings, Checking or Money-Market and he was forced to remember what type of account he had (GOD FORBID).

Lack of simple common sense is not the fault of the computers nor their programmers.  The example of “Jane, the PC-illiterate secretary” reminds me of far too many people I know personally. They are the people that belong in factories working on the line doing the same thing over and over with no deviations.  Perhaps these people can be trained and taught but Cooper’s argument is that is too expensive and time-consuming and that programmers and developers should make programs and products simpler to use. How simple do you have to get in order to appease the lowest common denominator?? Too low in my opinion.

I’m not trying to be a classist or anything but there will always be people who know and those who don’t. There will always need to be someone who works at McDonalds. Perhaps that will be  “PC-Illiterate-Secretary-Jane”.  This world is not a Utopia where everyone is equal. I think that the internet can help to level the playing field.  People need to be willing to learn and those who won’t will be left behind.  One way to help this is to start the understanding and education of programming and usability early on.

What did the engineers of the industrial age give to their children while they were growing up. Legos, Lincoln Logs and Tinker Toys. These helped to develop their children at an early age, it set them apart. I am not saying that every child who played with legos went on to become an engineer. Nor will teaching children the rudimentary basics to programming will cause them to create Skynet, but it will give them a base and solid understanding in the future.

This is not part of the requested posts for Module 5, but I wanted to point out the passing of a NYT journalist. I think William Safire spoke to the article on the Filtering of the internet. His conservative commentary on the OpEd section of the New York Times was cause for open discussion of issues. As Nancy Snow points out in her article on “The Huffington Post”, many at NYT were not happy he was still writing there at the super liberal paper. But as she states:

Part of journalistic appeal, especially in opinion writing, is to provoke reader interest through saying something that jolts a reader’s perspective out of somnolence.

As long as the other voices are allowed to be heard and printed, there will always be the opportunity to hear and read them.

So here’s my video blog.  Enjoy! (Maybe I should delete the comment ability on this one)