Social Software Explored

Ok, so this week I received the most traffic to my blog ever. You know who did it for me? Steve Irwin. Everyone and their mother has been looking for the death video of Steve Irwin. Hoping that some ‘connected’ blogger has some secret access to the file. I have received over 200 requests for that article in the week span since I wrote it. Amazing. Here are some of the search tems that users have been using:

steve irwin death video
actual steve irwin death video
“steve irwin video”
you tube steve irwin
the actual film on Steve Irwin’s Death
steve irwin death video on internet
actual video of steve irwin\’s death

This is inline however with my recent post regarding the Web and the new medium for history. If that ever get’s leaked to the Internet, it will forever become accessible at some level to anyone who want’s it. Every heard of the phrase “Don’t wish for something you may just get it?”. Half of these people are probably just curious. If (and when), they see the video, are they going to be satisfied. Will they wish that had not seen it.

I certainly am not interested in watching his demise. He was a respectable human being who touched many lives with his zanny attitude and uncanny ability to get up and close with every dangerous animal on our planet. He may have single handedly moved the environmental protection movement ahead 10 years by exposing so many people to the beautiful (and not so beautiful) creatures tha inhabit our planet.

I can remember watching the video of John F. Kennedy being shot when I was in like 8th Grade. It was for our history class. We rewound the tape 10 times to watch his head get ripped apart and to see the immediate reaction of Jacquiline. She was terrified, I can remember it vivdly.

In the near future events like this will be caught on (either some survellience or satellite) camera and will forever become a part of history.

I am writing this from our Nations Capital. I have travelled here today to deliver some training to the National Park Service on our product CommonSpot CMS. Today was a weird day and I was not to keen on travelling (especially flying to D.C). I decided to fly out of Providence instead of Boston (figuring that if anything was going to happen today it would happen out of a major city). This is not what I want to talk about (everything went fine and I am here safely). What I want to talk about is an extension on a previous post I made about the emergence of this new media – Internet Video. I guess it is not really “new”, but it sure is becoming popular.

Sites like ESPN and MSNBC.com have had video on their site for a long time. Way before Google Video, YouTube and the many others (check out http://www.break.com). But over the course of the last 9 months or so, all of the major news carriers have been offering supplemental (and sometimes primary) content in the form of Video. Some sites offer this as a free service while most are offering two flavors – the free version (small, short video’s) and a premium version (in-depth productions with large screen resolutions and full commentary – similar to a regular broad cast). It seemed to me to happen almost overnight and all kind of launched at the peak of Google Videos’ popularity (recently usurped by YouTube’s extraordinary growth). What does this all mean?

Well today I take this conversation a bit further. Since this is the anniversary of 9/11 I will add another perspective to this and talk about the Internet as an archive as general. If you read CNN.com at all you would have noticed that their front page was plastered with links to two video segments (each over an hour long) called “9/11/01 As it Happened”. The videos are actual videos uncut from the morning of 9/11. Amazing footage of what is probably one of the single most defining moments in US History (next to the signing of the Declaration of Independence). We were glued to our seats at work (or at home) as this amazing attack unfolded right before our eyes. And this video spared no details. Even catching one of the planes flying right into the trade center building LIVE.

What you received that day was not only the events as they happened but also a new emerging portrayal of news. CNN was the first to cover the attacks by using a local New York Affiliate. The Affiliate was broad-casted around the world and was essentially put on the spot with little to no information about the event. Over the course of the morning CNN pieced together the events by tapping into many resources including
- Eye witnesses
- Local news crews
- Political and Social Servants

Anything they could get their hands on. Simultaneously, all of the world was taken for this amazing ride as the news casters, torn between their feelings about the events and their own fixation on the delivery of this content as it happened, unravelled a puzzle of terror.

Education as you know it has changed
This topic enlightens my on another subject (which is really what I want to talk about), which is education. As I think about my two son’s future and what they may learn of this event (and others). I can’t help but think about how this new media will provide more insight into these events then ever before. No more “microfiche”, no more “microfilm” – just point click and watch.

Think of a history class 15 years from now – how will it change. Video vs. Reading. Surely there will still be books. Surely some information will have to be discovered the old fashioned way. I am sure this is happening now but imagine a wiley History teacher. Say someone that is currently in the 7th grade and has experienced this first hand having grown up in the Instant Messaging age. What will she do to explain this phenomenal event to her 8th grade history class. Think of all the resources she will have to arm her students with the truth.

Think of all of the points of view she will be able to offer
- Professional Video from news casts
- Personal home videos shot from across town in nearby high rise apartment buildings (search google and you will be amazed)
- Blogs and Wiki’s
- Prepared digital content of the findings: Open-Content projects like “Complete 911 Timeline” – certainly subject-able but contains valid sources.

Combine all of this with some of the raw footage that can easily express the emotions of everyday people as the tragedy was happening.

Here are a few other events “caught on film” that are worth noting (none having quite the rich resources of the 9/11 tragedy):
- Walking on the Moon
- Assassination of Kennedy
- Space Shuttle Challenger and Columbia Tragedies
- Waco (watched an excellent Documentary on this on the Documentary Channel – worth visiting).

I find this time in life to be the most exciting time for information convergence. All mediums coming together to allow everyone with a computer ($100 dollar laptops) to explore.

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Everyone is wondering when the video of Steve Irwin’s death (the actual film of him getting stabbed in the chest by a stingray) is going to hit the airwaves. At first I thought to myself “Oh that is going to hit YouTube in a week”. But the more and more I think about this, I have to disagree with myself. I don’t think that this video will _ever_ hit YouTube. Not if YouTube wants to stay popular because the fact of the matter is, watching a famed hero die is not something I want my kids doing. Now I know all about the movements on the Internet to produce a free environment for sharing information. This is not about that.

What it is about though is “Where in the hell did all of those Steve Irwin Video’s come from” Seriously though, I looked at the site today (because I was half curious) and in the last day over 200 videos were posted about Steve Irwin. Most of them are tributes and/or parodies about Steve.  I wonder where the footage comes from?  Do they tivo it and download it to their computers?  Are we seeing the advancements in video sharing as a result of operating systems like Windows Media Server?  Too be honest I don’t have Steve Irwin video footage hanging out on my computer. This is amazing. This guy wrestled alligators. Big alligators. I was actually a bit surprised to hear that it wasn’t an alligator or a wicked poisonous snake that finally got the best of him.

That aside, what I think is truly remarkable is that we are seeing the beginnings of the new medium at work. People armed with their super fast computers, broadband connection, DVD burners and editing software, are now sharing their thoughts and ideas in ways that I could only dream.

Rock on YouTube and please…keep the Steve Irwin death video off the site…please.

I have been talking a bit about the new web software age and how interesting it is being a part of this whole revolution. I am often struggling to make sense of this whole transformation that is going on. How Internet web sites (software) are battling for attention from users. I also, often try and separate the “technical” aspect (those individuals who knew what HTML was before Yahoo.com was popular) of this growth from the “human” aspect (those individuals who could differentiate HTML from RSS). I ran across two rather interesting posts today. Each one supporting and de-supporting some of my hypothesis that I (being from the technical side) am in a vacuum.

Digg.com still cannot compete with NY Times
This post has been around for a couple of days and has been reported on by a few people. The post that I like the most (because it has fancy graphs) is Hitwise US: Digg versus New York Times Reality Check from LeeAnn Prescott. In her post she talks about how many people have been talking trash about how popular Digg is and that it has enjoyed a serious 50% growth since February of this year. Since they just turned non-technical.

The share of page impressions for the NY Times was 19 times greater
than for Digg for that week. If I put the NY Times on the same chart as
Digg, Digg’s traffic would look tiny and relatively flat, even though
its share of page impressions has grown substantially in the past
several months, increasing 51% from February to June 2006.

Additionally, she goes on to note the top 20 search terms for users who were sent to digg.com:

1. sidekick3
2. chuck norris jokes
3. limewire pro
4. scary maze
5. mosquito ringtone
6. videora
7. digg.com (YES! Digg.com – clearly they have begun to reach the non-technical!)
…

As of the time of this writing here are the top 5 stories on Digg.com (Not the Technical Category – which is the default category if you visit the site – but the “All” categories).

1. Students used wigs to disguise the wireless gear used to cheat on exam
2. Resdesign From Scratch – first in a series of 50 redesigns
3. eWEEK Labs Bakeoff: Linux Versus .Net Stacks
4. Searching with “find” one of the least understood commands of Linux,
5. $200,000,000,000 isn’t enough. We need more money. Let’s tax the Internet

For me what this means is that there is still a divide between the technical audience and the non-technical audience. So my thoughts are, I am still in a vaccum.

YouTube.com nearly doubles in one month
Then I read about the tremendous growth of YouTube.com. YouTube.com could be classified in the social aspect of the new software that has been popping up. The site is new (founded as a company in February 2005) and allows people to upload their own video. Recently YouTube.com has been signing deals with major networks (NBC for instance) to publish their content. Not quite sure how that will work but it is turning into a numbers game with YouTube.com

YouTube had 12.6 million unique visitors in May (up from 6.6M and so putting it just outside the top 50 properties on the Web), Google Video 7M, and Yahoo! Video 4.2M.

Ok so if that doesn’t put it into perspective then I am not sure what does. YouTube.com went from 2 place (compared to Google and Yahoo! Video’s current numbers) to more than both combined — in one month! Incredible growth. With the Google Adwords on the right, Google just has to sit back, relax and buy YouTube.com at the right moment.

So what this means to me is that there are certain areas of this Social Networking, which is reaching beyond the Technical realm. Real ordinary people are flocking to this site to view video.

CNN.com reports on Rocketboom
Rocketboom is a vlog (videoblog) that has been around since October of 2004. While Rocetboom reports on many topics that are certainly considered non-technical, the fact that the very existence of this site is due to the Internet places it in a semi-technical realm. The fact that it receives over 100K visitors a day means that it is popular. Popular enough for the news about Amanda Congdon leaving Rocketboom, to make the front page of CNN.com.

Interestingly enough, the news about a non-mainstream news service loosing their host making it on the front page of a very mainstream news service proves that we are in some sort of paradox. Some large shift.

I will continue to ponder the change, what it means and how it will effect the technical and non-technical people in my life.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zU0xC8M3CwA&search=Super%20Mario%20Reloaded

Ok I have no time at all to even find content like this on the Internet (if it wasn't for mikull.com I would have never found this). How would you ever have the time to build this. Hopefully the person who made this entered it into a contest or received some college credit for this work, it seems like there was a lot of effort put into this. Actually, I thank them, because being a Matrix fan, this was a very entertaining clip.