Category Archives: The Brain

Mass media and virtual worlds . ..

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I have been a long believer that the mass media – television and radio – are still poised to be the dominant powers of the Internet … if they can let go of their fear of the Internet.  Their current position reminds me of the stories of the railroads way back when … ignoring and afraid of the airlines.  If the railroads had recognized that they were in the transportation business … they could have had it all!

It seems that still to this day, TV and Radio are all around us, constantly pushing their content at us, and – sadly or not – the masses still flock to it.  Millions of people across the country are scheduling their lives around their “favorite” TV show that they can’t get enough of.  Even the news draws millions of people to learn more about all of the events that occurred around the nation, and in their local area, they they *must* know about.

With this huge audience, this medium is still, IMHO, the most untapped mechanism to get people to the Internet.  It is the *only* way that you can impact so many people – at nearly the same instant – with some message or meme.  TV was the original way that people or companies were “slashdotted” … when something runs on TV there might be hundreds of thousands of immediate responses.

This article demonstrates a powerful TV brand utilizing it’s communications vehicle to move people to a new medium on the Internet … and to go beyond the “reality” TV of today, and into virtual worlds.  MTV is now creating a television program, that is then being used to drive people into their online virtual world.  This, to me, is a prime example of good marketing … using the power and reach that you have through TV to then create awareness and drive the people to your web properties.  Nice!

MTV launches ‘Virtual Hills’ based on There.com platform. Blog: MTV Networks on Monday announced the launch of Virtual Hills, a new custom virtual world created using the There.com platform,… [CNET News.com]

Understanding the coming future …

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This is an awesome blog post about many of the key terms, areas of research, and conversations that are going on around the world related to the coming future.  Anyone interested in the future ought to read through this list of key terms, and the associated links, and come up to speed on what the great minds around the planet are thinking of.

This list of terms and links will take you on a great journey through some amazing theories and discussions … this is the type of thinking that I live for.  For those who don’t want to read it all … we’re in for a wild ride!

Must-know terms for the 21st Century intellectual: Redux. George P. Dvorsky has created a list of the most fundamental and crucial terms that re-define the human condition and should be known by any expert generalist.

They include Accelerating Change, Anthropic Principle, Artificial General Intelligence,… [KurzweilAI.net Accelerating Intelligence News]

Can I collect Virtual Unemployment?

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Ok … I love to see where this is going. Someone in government begins to see the “dollar” volumn of commerce within virtual worlds … and they soon think “Gosh … how can *we* get a cut of that?”

I had really thought that taxation was something done for a purpose … not just because it can be done.  If the government is going to tax in virtual worlds, then are they going to begin to spend that money in virtual worlds?  I can’t even wait to learn about the newest virtual pork-barrel projects that are going to show up on the scene.  Politicians are going to begin to cater to the special interests of “furries” or some other group within Second Life … just to get their real-world votes?

If government really gets involved in Second Life, for example, then I wonder if they’ll set up the various programs to assist the “needy” or “unemployed”?  Hmmm … maybe I’ll be able to create a new character in Second Life and have them left homeless … file to collect virtual-unemployment in Lindon dollars?  Convert those on the various markets to real dollars?  Wait … I’ll create 100 characters in Second Life and have them ALL file for unemployment!  At that point will the government create “virtual immigration”?  I won’t be able to create a character or enter a virtual world without a proper passport that will limit me to one virtual character at a time?

It is amazing the times that we live in where the government is considering that they tax the creation of virtual wealth … however this will begin to set some precedents on how virtual worlds are looked at by laws, and general definitions.

Congress to look into taxing virtual worlds. Blog: For at least the past couple of years, one of the biggest questions in virtual world circles has been whether or not the U.S…. [CNET News.com]

Identity Tuples

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One of my friends asked me some questions the other day about my
constant focus on identity within the context of community. As
usual I was being asked about the “real” application of this notion …
not just the “philosophical” perspective. Well … I’m always
thinking the “real” application … I just don’t seem to express it
well.

I started to think about how – from my perspective – this notion would
be implemented in code, or within an identity store. All of this
relates back to my work on digitalMe while at Novell … and a group of
us were working towards this back then. As I thought more about
some of my recent comments, I realized that one of the “real world”
aspects was what I’ll now call “Identity Tuples”.

What exactly is an Identity Tuple? First, lets look at what most people use as examples of identity … simple name/value pairs.

  • age = 32
  • shoe_size = 12
  • job_title = CTO

There are a number of critical issues with this perspective, and to me it is the gross assumptions when we view this that make it nearly useless. Let’s first look at “age = 32” … uh, well 32 WHAT? Oh of course most people will call me silly and state “32 years of course!” But that is an assumption. And even if we do say that “age = 32 years” then we still have to reference what a year is, or also identify the context that the measurement “year” exists within. A “year” is what, exactly? 365 days? Nope … it’s actually 365.242 days. Who says so? NIST! Ok … and the second flaw in this perspective? WHEN was this true? Well, it would be at some epoch in time … or between some range of dates. Lastly, who is the community or authority that states this as fact?  When we state that “age = 32” it is a very incomplete statement. This is where an identity tuple can come into play … instead of storing “age = 32”, we would actually store:

It is how Identity “attributes” can be stored and represented.  What this provides is support for the fact that identity evolves with time!  I understand that most often people are asking about my identity right now, but there is considerable identity information that relates to the past, or trends in your identity.  Credit History is a classic example of this.  Likewise, if you have children you would know about the “growth charts” that compare your child to the averages of other children.

The other core value of Identity Tuples is that the context, or community, where this attribute is distinguished is referenced with the identity information.  To me, this is critical to be able to properly assess the identity information and determine its value to me.  It’s not enough to say that I am {x} years old … in the case of liquor laws, we want that information from a credible source.  We have to identify the community which will support my claims.

Now some people reading this will notice there are some subtle flaws in this example … it’s a rough example.  But it is an attempt to describe some of what I see lacking in existing solutions … and what a real solution will one day have to have to be more effective.

The edges of the Internet

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This year it has been fun to retest the edges of the Internet. 
What I mean is “How easy is it to get on the Internet from various
places?”

In May I took a trip to the Philippines (Philippines Videos)
and was blown away at how easy it was to get Internet access
everywhere.  There were cost-effective Internet Cafe’s all over
the place.  I was there from the 21st to the 31st, and travelled
from Manila to Baguio, to Iloilo and Bacolod, and back to Manila. 
Internet was everywhere.  Cheap and plentiful.

I’m posting this from the coast of Cuba, on the way to Labadee, Haiti.  I’m aboard the Royal Caribbean Navigator of the Seas,
and yes … there is Internet.  In fact, I’m on Wifi sitting in a
lounge on the 14th deck looking out over the upper decks of the ship
toward the distant horizon.  Somewhere out there is Haiti. 
We’ll get there sometime tomorrow morning … I think.

Slowly but surely access to the Internet is reaching everywhere on
earth.  Everywhere.  It was interesting to see that even
cellular is reaching out … there is a Cingular cell onboard the ship
and so I have full strength cellular service and SMS text.

As technology continues to advance, wireless technologies improve, and
business models support it … the edges of the Internet are slowly
going away.  It is inevitable that when something like the
Interent permeates the entire planet … there are no longer any edges
… it simply becomes something that is.

Undistinguished Identity

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This last weekend I was talking with a friend about Google, and the tracking of identity.  I blogged about Google, Identity and Privacy a few weeks back, and have been doing a lot of R&D in this area.  On Monday there was the uproar about the AOL leak of search queries
and how this data could be used to locate the person who was making the
queries.  What this article does not address is the
“undistinguished identity” that the person is revealing … information
about themselves that even they do not know.

The more that I discussed the issue with my friend, it started to
really get clear to me that my concerns about provacy and identity are
not as much my identity as most people think about it … but large
systems and companies that gain access to my undistinguished identity.

What do I mean by this?  To me, undistinguished identity
is all of my thoughts and behaviors that are completely a reaction to
stimulus around me.  Companies like Google are beginning to gain
vast amounts of information about me, what I search for, when I search
for it, and then have the ability to relate to to seemingly unrelated
events.

To me, it’s not just about companies knowing information about me that
I also know … it’s when they begin to know me, better than I know me.

Google knows who you REALLY are!

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It’s always fun to learn whole new layers of technology. What I’m
posting about here is probably known by a lot of people, but my recent
involvement in two new start-up companies has really started to have me
think about the breadth and depth of data mining occurring on the
Internet involving personal behavior and habits. And one of the
largest harvesters of all of that personal information is Google.
There are already others who cover this much better than I … Google Watch is one … however I still wanted to blog about this.

Two of the four start-ups that I am now involved in are working on web
applications – hosted services – that want to provide new levels of
social and affiliate networks. With one start-up we are creating
a new form of video advertising on the net, with a full affiliate
marketing network behind it. So it becomes important to track
when affiliates (bloggers or web sites that host the ads) cause sales
to occur. When that happens they get paid a commission.
With the other start-up we are creating a new interactive media type
that can be spread virally through web sites, e-mail and IM. With
this solution we want to be able to track and map the viral spread to
acknowledge and reward the people who are able to cause the most spread.

As my teams and I began to build both of these solutions we began to
examine how other vendors are accomplishing the same things. We
have now looked at dozens of implementations, and then created our own
solutions that we believe will give us what we are after. While
doing this I began to see a pattern that is an amazing wealth of
personal information that Internet users are giving away about
themselves … about who they REALLY are. On one of the largest
consumers of all of this personal behavioral information is
Google. It’s really the scale of their ability to gather this
data that caused me to pause and think.

It all starts with a cookie

In doing some research into how ot track consumers, I was surprised to
find that most people agree that 99%+ of web browsers operate using the
default settings when it comes to cookies. Cookies are the small
pieces of data that a web site can pass down to your web browser, and
from then on – until the cookie expires – that data is passed back to
the web site every time that you access it. Cookies can be
defined to last for a very short amount of time – just that particular
session – or a very long amount of time … decades, or even hundreds
of years.

So when you first visited Google … the very first time … you got
your first Google cookie. And this is a good starting point …
when did YOU lose your Google-virginity? When exactly was that
first time? Google knows. Even if you have changed
computers, browsers, upgraded, etc. there is a chance that Google still
knows. They know the year, day, hour, minute, and second.
You were given the mark of Google. Ok … big deal … so what.

Tracking what you search

The first thing they are now able to do is track every single search
that you perform on Google. Lots of people know about this, and
understand this is the case. They also know the time of day, day
of the week, phase of the moon, weather conditions, popular news, and
even the popularity of that particular search when you did it! So
what searches do you tend to do late at night during a full moon?
Ask Google … they know!

In my opinion, it’s not really the details of what you searched that
have the real value … it is when you did them, and in what sequences,
and what other patterns emerge about you. This is where your true
identity begins to emerge. What? You were on-line searching
on a Friday night? Not out with friends?

Proliferation of AdWords

Ok … now this next part is where I started to really think.
While working on how to dynamically inject video advertising into a web
page, I found that Google is using a very interesting technique for
AdWords and Google Analytics. Again … it’s very simple and
easy, and many people know this … however many people do not.
And the implications are very interesting.

If you have a web site, and you choose to place AdWords on your web
site, Google will give you a nice little bit of HTML to embed in your
page. That HTML includes a script tag that will fetch a snippet
of Javascript code from Google’s servers. The Javascript then
causes the AdWords ads to be rendered within your web page. It’s
actually pretty impressive that when I browse to your website, without
being told a thing, my browser will automatically load your page and go
and load the script from Googles servers. Clean …
transparent. Ok yeah … and when it did that … the Google
cookie went with that request. Remember the Google cookie?

Yes … now it’s not just the searches that you do on Google’s web
site that are being tracked, but also every single web page that you
visit that contains Google AdWords!

Tracking what web sites you visit

Google is now notified by your browser any time that you visit a web
site that hosts Google AdWords … and it only gets better. 
Google recently announced Google Analytics.  This is a service
that allows web site owners to get detailed analysis of the traffic to
their web site, and about the visitors to their web site.  Any web
site owner who wants this impressive reporting can simply request that
Google give them an account.  When approved, Google will provide
access to the Google Analytics web site, and there you get … another
little bit of HTML to put into your web pages.  The little snippet
again requests a script from Google, and of course passes along your
cookie!

So now Google knows what you search, and what sites you visit that have
AdWords, and now any site that uses Google Analytics.  I’m digging
to find figures to understand just how much of the Internet now falls
into this category, but it is a large number of sites.  And just
like the searches, Google not only knows what web sites you have
visited, but at what time, in what order.  Combined with their
broad indexes of Internet content, they have the ability to categorize
those sites.  Combined with all other types of data they can
really begin to get an idea of just who you are, what you do and when,
on the Internet.  I really begin to wonder what some of the
patterns must look like.

If Google knows your real identity also …

Now … they know you by your cookie, but do they really know who you
are?  Well, if you choose to use any number of Google services –
gMail, AdWords, AdSense, etc. – then the answer is yes!  In most
cases, you join these services and begin to disclose personal
information that just might be a solid connection to the real
you.  And remember, each time you use these services that nice
little Google cookie ensures that they know it’s you.  Closing the
loop.  Connecting the dots.

Lastly … your friends?  Well … Google now knows via gMail who
you communicate with, and at what intervals and times.  They now
know the type of people that your friends and contacts hang out
with.  Google knows that YOU are the type of person that all of
these people communciate with.  From their e-mail address they
might even draw the direct connection to yet another person who they
have collected all of the data about … from their Google
cookie.  I haven’t really spent too much time thinking about how
much deeper all of this goes … however it makes sense why Google
wants all the storage and bandwidth they are building out.  It’s
not about providing search to you … it’s about owning a perspective
of you that no one else on the planet could recreate right now.

Google knows you like no one else.  Google knows more about you
and I then we know about ourselves.  Google will use this to
provide us what we really want … right?  Google will do no evil
… right?  Google would never use this data to use us … to
manipulate our undistinguished behaviors … right?  The Internet
is here, and some things appear to be inevitable …

Google knows who you REALLY are.

Technological life getting biological implants?

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I like this one even better.  So what we seem to be doing is
planning for the future, when technological life has taken over. 
In this future, entities that have come from the technologic substrate
will be able to have biological implants!

Ok … all kidding aside … this is till pretty cool stuff. 
We’re making huge advances in the merging of biological and
technological life!

Scientists Couple Nerve Tissues With Computer Chip.

[Slashdot]

RFID Implants … do it yourself?

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When I read this article I immediately began to think about all of the
science fiction movies where the various characters are always trying
to REMOVE tracking devices from themselves.  I can remember the image of Arnold pulling the giant round tracking module from his nasal cavity in Total Recall.

This article, however, is about a growing number of people who are now
inserting RFID tags into themselves!  Well … in some cases they
are having doctors do it … but the one web page referenced includes
the list of items to do it at home!

Of course this links me back to Pete Ashdown‘s comments last night about integrity
… we spoke about this breifly after the Utah Bloggers conference had
ended.  It’s cool to see people who are ok with being tracked …
and aren’t afraid of anything that might be gathered about them. 
They are ok with where they go, and what they do.

I’m going to keep thinking about this one.  I have been thinking
that with the younger generations adopting lifestyles where ‘body
modification’ is becoming the norm, they will be more and more open to
technological implants.  If you are willing to get tattoos, and
have piercings, then when might you go for subdermal animated LED
impants, or RFID tags?

Social Consequences and Effects of RFID Implants?.

[Slashdot]