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Academics To Predict Next Twitter and Its Pitfalls
An anonymous reader writes "University researchers in the UK have put together a team tasked with predicting the next big thing in terms of communication technologies, in a bid to tackle ethical pitfalls before they become a problem. This is in the wake of the rise of social networking websites such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, which has led to a dramatic increase in the amount of personal information available online."
Thanks to the stimulus input, Medbook Space, the social network for medical records will be the next online sensation. X-rays, videos of prostrate exams, drug history ... all available to employers, insurance agencies and interested voyeurs.
Seriously, forget the academics. Put 10 teens in a room of various social types with a smart developer who listens and a programmable mobile device. You'll come out with a product.
-_-
Ah, but nobody is claiming they can do so accurately. They can, however, make educated predictions, some of which will be right. It's the shotgun approach. The point isn't in the predictions, but in the ethical issues they address, so that others can take responsible actions if some of those technologies become big.
The headline could better have read "Academics to predict pitfalls of potential next Twitters."
The best thing you can do is not hang around with idiots who feel compelled to blog or twat* about every damn thing they do. That won't eliminate every single photo of you, but it'll eliminate most (currently) searchable references to you. Avoiding having non-friends take your picture can almost always be done without causing a fuss.
The only major loose end that leaves is family, which can be difficult to deal with diplomatically. A lot of older people don't understand the basics of internet socialization - a much older cousin of mine recently got very upset by the result to the "Which of Jesus' Disciples Are You?" quiz on facebook - and trying to explain things like privacy issues can be daunting. The only pic of me on the 'net right now is one of me with my extended family, taken and posted by my mom. Not a good pic, but I'll survive.
*If I have to call it something embarrassing like tweet, I'd prefer to call it something embarrassing and insulting to the service.
The character limit makes you aware how much fluff we add to what we say. Most comments on this article could be half as long and lose little. I wouldn't claim it is bringing succinctness back to English, sum ppl jus rite lyk dis nstead.
Other sites do it, one takes anecdotes with word limit of ~50 makes good use as readers can absorb many stories quickly increasing how much they enjoy their time at the site. In a time poor society I'd appreciate more people going straight to the point.
(FYI, I wrote this post, realised how long it was and trimmed it down to below half as long without sacrificing any content)
No that's what I meant. I don't mind banner ads and stuff. It's the companies posing as 'people' who want to be your friend. I get enough spam in my email, thanks.
I enjoy being able to white list my instant messaging and email accounts, but a "social networking" service needs to be open.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
One character messages only. Now you can say the same things even faster.
Feh. Ancient history.
An entire genre of prose was derived from the high cost of sending telegrams. Hemingway is probably the most famous example, but a whole generation of journalists learned to pare down their sentences to the absolute minimum to save on transmission costs.
True story: A foreign correspondent was sent to a distant country to prepare some coverage of an imminent war. Because telegraph costs were so high, the home office had prepared large amounts of background already, and kept it sitting on file. All they needed to know was when to print it.
The parsimonious editor sent the following message to his correspondent:
?
To which the correspondent replied:
!
The same day the front page announced news of the outbreak of war.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
Actually, if I had a better idea, I would go out and implement it so that I could make money off of it. Which tells you all you need to know about these guys, if they knew what the next big thing was going to be, they would go make money off of it. Since they don't know what it is, they will try to tell us why we shouldn't do it.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison