Sabih Oved as an allegory

If you walk East on the Kazenelson street in Givataim and then turn right to the Sirkin street, you will see a short line of 5-10 people, sometimes more. It doesn't really matter what time of the day you will visit the place, there always will be people. They are standing in line to get sabih from the famous Sabih Oved (the link is to a funny commercial). Although sabih is a relatively simple dish, Oved literally managed to bring it to a level of art, justifying his self-proclamation as "the best sabih in the universe". The secret seems to be simple as well – Oved concentrates on a single product, but he is doing it the best.

However, Jon Stewart from the "Daily Show" thinks that he can do everything and still remain the best. As hilarious as he can be talking about politics and sometimes celebrities, he failed completely trying to talk about technology.

Yesterday, in light of the official lunch of Windows Vista, he hosted Bill Gates. Probably as an act of sophisticated criticism on the business practices of Microsoft, Stewart had MS's logo all over the screen as long as Bill Gates was talking. The entire studio was covered with MS symbols and a shiny box of the newly-released Vista stayed in Stewart's hands as glued. But leaving the studio aside, the content of the interview itself was even more surprising. Well, was there an interview at all? Stewart looked as he was shy or scared asking Gates meaningful questions. He simply let him taking over the stage, boldly promoting Vista and MS. And Gates was great! He is a very good speaker and an impressive marketer. He told everyone how people oriented the new Vista is, how secure it is and how wonderful the world will be thanks to the computers. Stewart remained satisfied with deep satirical remarks, such as asking Gates about his password and if he has flying toasters as his screensaver. And for those who still had doubts about the nature of this 10 minutes episode, Gates clarified it when he simply got up and left the studio the moment his interview was over. What can you do? The man is busy. He has an empire to run.

The entire episode leaves a very bitter taste. The popular satirical show looks as if simply selling itself to promotion of the MS's new product and Jon Stewart appeared as a scared little boy, bathing in the shadow of glory of the one of the richest and most powerful men on Earth. Not a single question addressing the violent business practices of MS, the multiple problems and ambiguities surrounding the new Vista; not a hint on the great similarities of the new system with MAC operating system, no notion of the extension of MS to providing content and getting more involved in our lives; nothing. None of the really important and interesting question surrounding MS was raised in this rather unique opportunity offered to the "Daily Show". Jon Stewart literally set the stage (with huge windows logos) to Bill Gates to promote the new MS's creation for almost 10 minutes.

What was there? Why did the biting satiric show turned into mewing toothless creature carefully following every movement of its master and expressing poor sense of humor? Is it the power of Bill Gate's personality that turned Stewart into a pincher? Or is it the collaboration between Viacom, the owner of "Daily Show", and MS that dictates a scathing provision of infomercial time, mocking the viewers' intelligence? Or is it me not understanding the deep humor and the critical insight of the situation?

Interestingly enough, the next show, "Colbert Report" also addressed a technology related issue involving MS. He was talking about MS paying people editing the Wikipedia entry on the company to make it more positive. However, unlike Stewart, Colbert managed to touch upon a number of critical points. So what was the difference? The actual presence of Gates? The personality of the anchor? Or it is an issue of professionalism? Just like Oved. If you know how to do one thing good, maybe you should stick to it and make it perfect?

Your help needed!

Recently, i've been receiving comments on my blog's name.

Naming this blog, i was thinking about the combination of my name (Dima) and the word blog, hence "Dimblog". The only thing i did not take into account, is that the word "dim" has an "interesting" meaning in EN.

Since i want to keep blogging as part of my academic practice, i think i should shift it to a new domain. It is also a good opportunity to do it now, since i am rearranging the entire thing anyway.

Now, I NEED YOUR HELP in choosing a new name for the blog.

I have a number of my own ideas, but i would like to hear everybody else's thoughts first and at the end i will open the decision to a vote. So please, whoever reads this blog, suggest alternative names (by email, or here).

I only hope it will go better than the naming of the desk :)

Googalization

Yesterday I came to google.com in order to search for something, just to discover that they put an advertisement on their homepage. No worries, they are still sort of true to the concept of having a clean homepage and the advertisement was basically to the new google product. It has a small shopping chart and a link offering $10 if you sign up for the service.

I don't know if that offer is available only in the States or elsewhere, but that is a curios one. What they are offering this time is a limited pay-pal-stile service. You create an account (i bet you can use your existing google account too), store your credit card details there and use it to check out when you shop online. Convenient, isn't it? You don't have to give your credit card details again and again over the net. You just trust google taking good care of security and use this simple and friendly service.

You can do this (and more) today with pay-pal of course, but having everything under one username should be so convenient. You just log into your google account and you have all your news, mail, blog, docs, etc. and now even an option to pay your bills.

But wait a second... What does it mean for my privacy? How much more will google now know about me? Will it help me sleeping better at night? Will it make me a better citizen? Maybe a happier person?

Let see what it already knows if i am using a series of its personalized services:

• If i use google.maps it knows where i live and what the local businesses i am searching for.
• If i search google, especially with the google bar, it knows where i go online
• If i use google.news, it knows what i am interested in
  
• If i use its feeds, it knows whose opinions i am interested in
  
• If i use gmail, it knows what i am corresponding about
• If i use Blogger, it knows what i am writing about
• If i use google.docs, it knows what i am working on
• If i use google.desktop, it knows what is on my computer
• If i use google.finance, it knows where my money or my financial interests are
• If i use picasa, it knows what i and my family and friends look like
• and there is more to it...
  

Now i have the unique opportunity to allow google know what you are shopping for! Why not? Don't you trust google? They will not use your personal data, why would you worry? Google will only use the aggregative data, gathered through all the channels above and crossed, to make your searches more precise. It will ONLY help you making better decision. For it know what you REALLY want and are looking for.

So far is on the sarcastic note. Now the question is where is the line that we draw between getting convenience and jeopardizing our privacy? What google offers is indeed very convenient and is usually of a great quality. But to what extend we are ready to submit our lives to a commercial entity, counting on it helping us to improve our lives and not misusing it? Where is the border line? Is there one?

So much for the innovation...

Skype founders create online television service

Skype founders are Joost in time for online TV plan

Skype founders take TV to Net

Global Internet TV Service by Skype

Right now Google.news shows 278 articles (and counting) with these and similar headlines. All of them are dealing with the recent announcement of Skype founders, Niklas Zennstrm and Janus Friis, that they are going to lunch an internet based TV service they call "Joost". From my reading of a few news articles, what they are offering is to replace your TV screen with a computer screen and your decoder box provided by the cable company by software on their servers. The business model is based on advertisement (means you pay nothing exept for your time and privacy) until they offer a pay-per-view option, and they also promise the service to be piracy-proof (well, that one we'll have to wait and see).

As much as i love Skype and think it was breaking through idea at the time, right now i fail to see the great promise of Joost. Why would people like watching their TV on a computer screen? Does it mean they need to upgrade their computers to have at least 29 inch screen and a decent sound system? Does it mean the computer is moving from the office to the living room? What is the relative advantage of watching commercial based content online, vs. paying a relatively low fee and gaining full control over the content and the settings where one can view it? Today you can buy most of the content that Joost is going to offer on DVD or VoD and it doesn't cost that much (that is assuming you follow the legal way, otherwise it is even less) and you can choose where and when to watch it. One place where watching something in real time worth the effort is sports, but then again comes the question if the computer screen experience worth the $10 for the sports channel on cable? The cable companies start offering bundles of services including TV, phone and internet, so the relative part of paying for the content is probably diminishing even though it is hard to determine. Will people be willing to jeopardize their privacy even more and let also "Joost" follow what they are watching and where they are surfing? Well, the notions of privacy seems to be changing, so maybe the last question has a more obvious answer.

If Joost does go big however, one possible positive outcome from a consumers' point of view may be decrease in pricing of cable TV services. At the same, i think Microsoft's attempt to turn the x-box into a media center by connecting it to the web and actually offering the content, bares the similar, if not greater potential. Anyway, both of them are aiming at the Western, developed countries, which raises a series of additional questions about digital inclusion (divide), but that is for another post.

Even if i am mistaken in my skepticism, and Joost is going to be the next big thing (i.e. people value their privacy, time and limited ability to choose less than few dozens dollars or shekels), i still cannot get rid of the feeling that Joost is the same old thing we all know, just the cover is different (similar to the recent Google-Orange partenership). Unlike Skype that presented an innovative thinking about the technology and people's needs, Joost seems to replicate the old package and just shifting the platform. So much for the innovation...


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Update, 13:00 - Apparently i am not the only one asking these questions. Take a look here for example (and she has probably different incentives thinking about this things than i do).

Wikipedia?

Here is an interesting post with thoughts on Wikipedia's dark future and there are three points that caught my attention.

First, the idea of commercial forces forcing their models on Wikipedia commercializing it. Basically the argument in the post is simpler and is about commercial entities taking advantage of the openness of Wiki. However, i think that it may even go beyond to a greater influence, such as that described by Schiller in his book - advertising based models taking over new media and new outlets.

Another point is about the bureaucratic structures that emerged in in Wikipedia. The interesting point is that the hierarchy in Wikipedia is activity based - those who edited more got into more powerful positions. The problem with this structure is that once the hierarchy got established, people "in power" channel they energy to preserve the power strucutre.

The thirds point is about lack of incentive for Wikipedians to continue contributing to enterprise - they are getting neither money nor recognition for their effort (which raises interesting questions regarding how they utility from contributing to Wikipedia is constructed).

The last two points made me thinking again about the potential structure we are seeking for the "Human Network". On the one hand, the idea of having a non-hierarchical structure may be workable, but there is still should be bureaucracy that will prevent people from gaining too much power that will allow them to abuse their position. It seems to me that once the main focus shifts from the core activity of an organization to preserving particular power structures, the overall performance of the organizations suffers. At the same time, the issue of incentives is important. We've seen that in the last few years dealing with HN and that is not new, but it is still good to see it shared by others.

Any additional thoughts anyone?

Loving Technorati

I was looking for Erik's blog in Technorati and typed the blog address (www.framingconflict.blogspot.com/) in the search field. The result exceeded all the expectations. Here you can find it and this is the text:

Huh?

There are blogs, and then there's whatever you just typed in. If it's a blog, we don't know about it. Maybe you made a typo. Or maybe it's a blog that doesn't exist. Maybe you don't exist. (In which case, please ignore this.)

I am laughing out loud :)

Blogs I read

Most of the blogs here are my friends' blogs. Some of them are more personal, but the others have more general content. So, looking forward this page is divided into a few sections and some of the blogs appear in both of them. The names are in alphabetical order and all the links open in a new window/tab. I will update the page as time goes by.

Blogs i participate in
Digital inclusion blog
My culinary adventures

Society and/or technology
Danial (EN)
'Gbenga (EN)
Lisa (EN)
Eszter Hargittai (EN)
Tarleton (EN)

Communication research
Erik (EN)

Personal
Alma (HE)
Elya (RU)
Leonichka (RU)
Michelle (EN/CH)
Nadya (RU)
Sean (EN)
Josh (EN)


Last updated: February 2007

Interesting and/or useful websites

Here are some interesting and/or useful website either for me or anyone reading this blog. More will be added or changed as time goes by, the date at the top indicates the last time this page was updated and all the links open in new window/tab.

Digital inclusion (aka digital divide)
Digital Divide Network
Eszter Hargittai

Rearranging the blog

Since i moved to the new blogger i decided to reorganize the blog a little bit. In order to keep the amount of links on the side bar minimal, i decided to have constant pages with lists of the blogs that i read and websites i visit. I will also try having a resource page on the issues that interest me. Here we go...

Interests

A few days ago, when Saddam Husein was executed i looked what were the top topics in various online environments (it just seemed to be the only thing in most mainstream US media).

So, the top story in google.news was about Husein, as well as the top tag at technorati's web page. However, when i checked out digg.com, there was no trace of Saddam Husein's execution on the entire first page. Top stories dealt with gadgets and video games. For those who don't know, digg is a website that allows users to rate the relevance/importance of news items. Some view it as the next step in organizing the huge amounts of information we are exposed to.

Frankly, i was surprised. I just wanted to see what were the different versions of coverage of the execution, but i did not expect to find no coverage at all.

So, looking at the surprising results at digg, i thought. Is it an indication of the true priorities of web users in terms of news content? Or it is a unique feature of digg users?Or it is simply that social classification of news doesn't work?

Any thoughts?