The Times: Tech column - Amateur media/RFID/Bill Gates' philanthropy
By David Rowan
IS THE journalistic establishment done for? As the Bush cavalcade came to town last week, I unplugged the TV and radio, suspended the papers and relied entirely on amateur websites to follow events. Catching up later on the "official", media coverage, I can't say I missed very much (save for the erudition of Times commentators, naturally). Fellow hacks will hate me, but for real-time reporting of high-profile events, corporate media could learn much from the web community.
With activists from Buckingham Palace to Sedgefield armed with camera phones and wireless-enabled laptops, grassroots sites such as Chasing Bush and Indymedia poured out live reportage, photographs and the occasional video feed that conveyed the protests' raw energy more compellingly than any professional report I saw. All gloriously subjective, of course, but for every anti-Bush weblog covering the visit, there were competing pro-Bush webcasts, not least the President's re-election team's own weblog, chronicling his "warm, countryside welcome".
As more of us go broadband and use the web to communicate our own experiences, corporate media are facing unprecedented competition for citizens' attention. A year ago, when a website called Technorati started monitoring what people were saying on their weblogs, it was linking to between 2,000 and 3,000 new ones a day. By last spring, the number had risen to 5,000 - and now 9,000 are being added every day.
We know that campaigning politicians, notably Howard Dean, the Democratic presidential hopeful, are bonding with vast numbers of supporters, and raising millions in funds, through their regularly updated weblogs. But it is not just the slick, well-financed semi-official sites that can shape events. A politically embarrassing videoclip or a damaging first-person report on an amateur weblog can instantly find its way around the world.
Howard Rheingold, whose writings helped to define "cyberspace", sees nothing less than a social revolution taking place. "We're seeing weblogs grow into a community of commentators," he says. "A new literacy of internet publishing is emerging, just as a new literacy emerged in the wake of the printing press." A grand vision, perhaps; but rather than ignore this vast pool of amateur eyes and ears, shouldn't smart media companies be tapping into it?
++++
THE WORLD'S largest retailers seem determined to ignore public anxieties over the "smart tags" being built into everyday consumer goods. The tags, which identify individual items using radio signals, will eventually take over from barcodes. But civil-rights groups say that they let products (and their owners) be tracked indefinitely.
Last week 30 pressure groups demanded a moratorium on these "spy chips" until consumers are given privacy guarantees. Tesco's response has been to rename them "radio barcodes", and to push ahead with trials. As with other companies pressing ahead, such as Wal-Mart, little attempt has been made to clarify how the tags are being used. Fears may be exaggerated, but unless companies are completely open, they face potential PR disasters ahead.
++++
NEXT TIME your PC crashes or your Windows upgrade burns a hole in your wallet, pause before cursing Bill Gates. He continues to be one of the world's most generous people. The Microsoft boss and his wife have so far given away more than half their $46 billion (£27 billion) fortune.
(The Times, November 25 2003)
IS THE journalistic establishment done for? As the Bush cavalcade came to town last week, I unplugged the TV and radio, suspended the papers and relied entirely on amateur websites to follow events. Catching up later on the "official", media coverage, I can't say I missed very much (save for the erudition of Times commentators, naturally). Fellow hacks will hate me, but for real-time reporting of high-profile events, corporate media could learn much from the web community.
With activists from Buckingham Palace to Sedgefield armed with camera phones and wireless-enabled laptops, grassroots sites such as Chasing Bush and Indymedia poured out live reportage, photographs and the occasional video feed that conveyed the protests' raw energy more compellingly than any professional report I saw. All gloriously subjective, of course, but for every anti-Bush weblog covering the visit, there were competing pro-Bush webcasts, not least the President's re-election team's own weblog, chronicling his "warm, countryside welcome".
As more of us go broadband and use the web to communicate our own experiences, corporate media are facing unprecedented competition for citizens' attention. A year ago, when a website called Technorati started monitoring what people were saying on their weblogs, it was linking to between 2,000 and 3,000 new ones a day. By last spring, the number had risen to 5,000 - and now 9,000 are being added every day.
We know that campaigning politicians, notably Howard Dean, the Democratic presidential hopeful, are bonding with vast numbers of supporters, and raising millions in funds, through their regularly updated weblogs. But it is not just the slick, well-financed semi-official sites that can shape events. A politically embarrassing videoclip or a damaging first-person report on an amateur weblog can instantly find its way around the world.
Howard Rheingold, whose writings helped to define "cyberspace", sees nothing less than a social revolution taking place. "We're seeing weblogs grow into a community of commentators," he says. "A new literacy of internet publishing is emerging, just as a new literacy emerged in the wake of the printing press." A grand vision, perhaps; but rather than ignore this vast pool of amateur eyes and ears, shouldn't smart media companies be tapping into it?
++++
THE WORLD'S largest retailers seem determined to ignore public anxieties over the "smart tags" being built into everyday consumer goods. The tags, which identify individual items using radio signals, will eventually take over from barcodes. But civil-rights groups say that they let products (and their owners) be tracked indefinitely.
Last week 30 pressure groups demanded a moratorium on these "spy chips" until consumers are given privacy guarantees. Tesco's response has been to rename them "radio barcodes", and to push ahead with trials. As with other companies pressing ahead, such as Wal-Mart, little attempt has been made to clarify how the tags are being used. Fears may be exaggerated, but unless companies are completely open, they face potential PR disasters ahead.
++++
NEXT TIME your PC crashes or your Windows upgrade burns a hole in your wallet, pause before cursing Bill Gates. He continues to be one of the world's most generous people. The Microsoft boss and his wife have so far given away more than half their $46 billion (£27 billion) fortune.
(The Times, November 25 2003)
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