Hacker Lifestyle
When we see something that is simple and obvious we automatically assume that we can reach the same idea because after all it is simple and obvious. However, simple and obvious concepts are hard to come up with.
Do not ignore the simple and the obvious. Some of the greatest things ever invented are quite simple and rather obvious but nevertheless great and irreplaceable.
I think that we are at the verge of another online change. We are going from hyper global communities, to ultra local and even micro communities.
Global communities are places such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and all other social networks which sole purpose is to get as many users on board as possible. They are doing well but have become significantly less helpful in the last couple of years. In other words, people find them too intrusive, to globalized and subjective to abuse. People add friends as maniacs for no apparent reason apart form increasing their rank and apparently popularity level – a number which often means nothing to anyone.
As a result of all of this, we see the emergency of hyper local communities where real relationships can be made; micro communities designed around very specific purposes with clearly defined goals. These communities matter as they are real. They are small but sometimes quite significant and influential.
Needless to say, hyper local and micro communities are more secure and less subjective to abuse. Simply put, when people know each other quite well a lot of technological and social related problems such as spam, fake identities, etc., become non-issues. They simple disappear. This is an interesting side-effect which worths further exploration.
Mashable is running an interesting article today titled 6 Things World of Warcraft Can Teach You About Social Media Success
. It is about the life lessons the author of the article learned while playing WoW.
I took the courtesy to summarize them all here but pay a tribute to mashable by visiting their website first.
All of this reminds me of something I wanted to do for long, long time. Let me explain. In my high school years me and my friends used to organize late evening StarCraft tournaments – nothing too obsessive, two games max per day and no more than 1-2 hours long. We used to do these tournaments for a couple of months and it was then when I noticed similarities between the strategies involved in the game and the things that we do in real life. I very rarely play strategy games these days but I’ve always wanted to summarize in a blog post or something my conclusions from my experience when I used to play.
I guess now I have an incentive to finally sit and do it.
Seth Godin argues the Internet has ended mass marketing and revived a human social unit from the distant past: tribes. Founded on shared ideas and values, tribes give ordinary people the power to lead and make big change. He urges us to do so.
If you watch the video you will spot the Kindle sell-out but it is interesting presentation nevertheless. Actually, I listened to (yes audio version) of Seth’s book called Tribes
and I found the whole idea quite fascinating but a bit off the ground.
See the video. You might get inspired to start your own tribe.
I wrote about the importance of simplicity before but here is another reason why you should believe me. :)
Keep this in mind the next time you design a service or a product. The simpler the better.
Confused information security folks (but not only) can find this video quite interesting.
What I liked the most about this video is that the authors clearly explain that social media is first of all the collective contributions of ordinary people through blogs, wikies, podcasts and other social instruments combined with the efforts of other individuals and organizations who are willing to aggregate, organize and help facilitate community feedback.
By the people, for the people!
Funny Sunday morning stuff:
Steve Jobs and St. Peter are also there.
In my opinion, some of the facts presented in this video are questionable. There isn’t an easy way to verify them. Nevertheless, the footage is quite interesting and informative.
3.0 for 2008 – Newly Revised Edition Created by Karl Fisch, and modified by Scott McLeod; Globalization & The Information Age. It was even adapted by Sony BMG at an executive meeting they held in Rome this year. Credits are also given to Scott McLeod, Jeff Brenman.
The reason why I am posting this is to stress that information has become an important part of our lives. Today we are information hungry. Tomorrow… who knows? I suspect that we will get fed up with the world and escape for the simpler life. You might want to check my previous article on the same subject.
A video from 1993 when the Internet was just making its premiere in the world.
Some people say that what happens on the Web STAYS on the Web. Although I agree that this is true for some of the content it is largely untrue for the majority of it.
The reason for this is relatively simple. Not everything is rated equally and not everything is disseminated in a way that it is preserved within the inner fabrics of the web ecosystem. For something to stay on the web you need not only to publish it but also to cause the so called viral effect where hundreds if not millions of individuals help the information to disseminate permanently. The viral effect is a key property for prolonging or immortalizing the life of information. It also protects the integrity of the information so that its true meaning cannot be lost. If you think about it, the viral effect is to some extend like a networked RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks) system.
Without the viral publishing successful dissemination of the information is not possible and without recurrent viral campaigns its immortalization is not guaranteed.
For the majority of the content it is fair to say that if it born on the web, it will die on the web as well.
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