The Digital Footprint: Internet Philosophy with Kris Krug (2 of 3)
This is part two of a three part interview with thought leader Kris Krug. Have you read Part One yet?KE: You often talk about a ‘digital footprint’, what does it mean to you and where do you see it going?
KK: Every time we interact online we are leaving digital breadcrumbs. These little digital ‘bits’ leave a trail of information about us. We reveal things about ourselves and others make statements about us. This could be what you read, when you favourite a video or post a comment. It’s an amalgamation of what you do online. Even when we think we don’t exist on the net in fact we do.
[Google your name and add your main city of residence to see for yourself]
What do you think of Aggregators? Will that be the digital footprint?
[Get an idea of how FriendFeed represents the digital footprint at Kris' feed or mine]
Do you see any really good Filters out there?
I am currently consulting for 2010 and the David Suzuki foundation, building custom dashboards. I am running searches for “Cultural Olympiad” through PostRank. It tells me who is saying what about this topic anywhere on the internet. I am also using Netvibes and Yahoo Pipes mixing and filtering feeds, Technorati and Google Alerts to track online content in real-time. The really good filters are custom built for their users to enable the most focused result.[Also try Social Mention or Twitter Search for tracking internet chatter about your topic of choice]
Should we be using custom or proprietary filters to gather information?
The easiest to use and cheapest solution is good for the average individual. For companies or individuals needing custom in-depth solutions complete with statistics and analytics a custom solution is the way to go. The current market for these custom solutions is a bit of an arms race and the key is to dial in and refine searches and filters. Techniques like keyword segregation and optimization help enable custom solutions to increase the value for users. To those who understand the power of the media, know what’s possible and want to utilize that power will use custom systems going forward.The internet is an incredibly visual medium, what does this mean for the written word?
I don’t know. Media literacy is very interesting. In the advertising age with TV we saw a movement away from literacy and ads towards visuals and real stories. Young people are continually tuning out traditional advertising. The internet is based on text, HTML=Hyper Text multi-language. It’s all about machines being able to read text and understanding linking and language. We are observing changes in communication. Things may not be better or worse, but they are certainly they are different. The approach to media is changing as media power becomes more decentralized. We are now able to receive many different perspectives, a myriad of voices representing different sides of an issue. Biases are now more explicit compared to the old system where biases were less obvious and people were tuning out advertising a lot less.What would u like to see on the internet/web that is not currently available?
I would like to see more philosophical dialogue and less pure entertainment, more art and culture and less funny cat videos. I would like to see more true art online, more cultural interaction and above all; more collaboration. Canada Code is a great example. We now get to tell our own stories. VANOC’s people are doing a great job working inside an organization [the IOC] which is resistant to the internet as a means to create culture and identity. I would like to see us reaching out to artists and Canadians because we can tell the best stories. You are an artist and creator who wears many hats, how do you keep it all in order?
What about bloggers or creators whose work isn’t really seen by anyone? ;)
In regard to doing stuff that no one sees, if they keep it up people will eventually stumble upon it. Do it for the love of subject matter and it will come; the audience and the money. Learn more about your subject matter and figure out how to use it. I am a firm believer that there are different strokes for different folks. ‘Create your own reality’ with these tools and a community will grow around you if you engage them.
Do you think the sale of the Pirate Bay is a turning point in the proliferation of piracy on the net?
People’s attitudes about piracy are changing. BitTorrent is becoming like TCP/IP to email. In the sense that everyone uses email but few people know its backend is TCP/IP. People will get content anyway using peer to peer sharing. BitTorrent is a way to handle billions of users.
The view from L'Hermitage looking East towards Vancouver Public Library. -KE
The Digital Footprint: Lessons from Kris Krug (1 of 3)
Kris Krug is a technology, idea and thought leader with a strong presence in the digital world. He is also described as ‘a tech-artist, quasi-sage, cyberpunk anti-hero from the future’. The more you get to know him the more that description rings true. I like to imagine him as a cyber surfer on the front of the wave enabling arts and culture in the internet age. If you've never heard of Kris check out his Wikipedia page here. Kris describes himself on kriskrug.com as, “a photographer, web strategist and author based in Vancouver.” Kris speaks all over the world on the topics of technology and the arts. I was inspired by his presentation at Pecha Kucha in Vancouver titled, “Open Everything”. In the presentation Kris talks about the move away from traditional blogging towards a digital footprint.To Kris the 'digital footprint' is represented by his photos on flickr, his videos on YouTube, his blog posts, links he shares, comments he leaves, interactions he has and comments others make about him. See a digital footprint by googling his name or mine. I am writing with many links embedded in the hopes that if you are interested you will explore and try these tools for yourself. Powerful computing tools are increasingly moving online and Kris knows his stuff. So join me as I go into the mind of a current thought leader for a lesson or two.
When did you realize that technology was part of your vocation?
I really started working with web technology while I was at University. In early 1996 I was introduced to Netscape(?) and I started creating web pages. It was when my Communications professors approached me to build web pages for them that I knew things were really changing. It was an upheaval of the traditional power structure. Normally students want help from professors, suddenly these same professors were coming to me for help with their work. I went onto to create web pages for my professors, to promote and sell books, and the university.
In 1998 I created Spark-online.com, an online magazine exploring electronic consciousness and digital philosophy. It grew pretty big and we were using content management systems before blogging which required us to build new HTML pages every month. 11 years later my life is a continuation of those explorations and the addition of more. I am publishing online and speaking live exploring how we are changing and how the medium is changing.On Blogging...
When blogging first started it was for everything [pictures, videos, discussions]. Now each of these media has their own tools outside the blog [flickr, YouTube, Twitter/Facebook]. People are no longer blogging every day; comments on blogs aren’t the place for discussions they once were. One great new tool [Disqus] aggregates tweets about a particular post and then includes a link or embeds those tweets into the blog in the comments section.
Now, instead of writing a blog post after an event I can tweet from the event, post photos and video directly to the web in real time and the day after the event I can do a blog post. I can use tweets from others about the event, embed some of the photos or videos I posted the day before into the post. I feel like we are moving from a web of pages to a web of streams. These streams allow us to aggregate our presence into one central place.On the Olympics... [from a video of a recent Olympic roundtable w/Kris]
I currently represent "The True North Media House" and we are working to build an independent, alternative media center for the 2010 games. There will be a period of time in the future where the stories we are sharing 20 years after the games will be things that happened online. This is the first Olympics sitting on that brink and I hope to help tip the scales in that way through the organization of this 2010 media house.
[Also see this post from co-founder Dave Olson]
In order to prevent readers from having to read to much at once I have broken this piece up into 3 posts. Each post is chalked full of great tools, ideas and links from Kris Krug. Read Part 2 now!
Google launches Chrome OS at Microsoft Windows. Office 2010 tries to crush Google Docs
Google has decided it is time to battle with its nemesis Microsoft on all fronts, first on the web with the Chrome browser and now on your computer with it's operating system: Chrome OS. Microsoft, not to be outdone, launched Bing, their new search engine which with tons of advertising is quickly gaining market share. David Pogue of the New York Times wrote this great article, Bing VS Google, at the launch of Bing comparing it to that old dog, Google.
Last week Google announced its new Chrome OS (Operating System) based on its Chrome browser and the blogosphere became engrossed once again in the Microsoft VS Google battle. Chrome is mainly targeted at netbooks and web browsing devices. It will not replace Andriod, Google's underdeveloped mobile platform. Acer already has plans to use the new Chrome OS in it's new netbooks. The difference here is cost to computer manufacturers who traditionally paid Microsoft about $20/computer for Windows. These manufacturers can now choose to use Google's Chrome OS for FREE as it is open source software.
Google's business plan is to ensure that you spend more time online. Google makes money when people are online as Ben Parr of Mashable points out so well in his recent post. Google is ubiquitous in the online advertising game and owns most advertising means online. Google's idea is that anytime you spend with a desktop game or application is time Google is not getting your eyeballs on its ads. Expect to see more and more applications and games to replace the desktop experience from Google in the future.
Microsoft yesterday announced its newest release of Microsoft Office in the shadow of Google's OS announcement from Thursday. An intended outcome of the timing of Google's announcement. The new version of Office will be called 2010 and is expected to hit shelves in North America a year from now. The new release upgrades the long used program in a few minor ways. The major changes, web integration and collaboration tools, came as a direct attack on Google's successful web-based office suite, Google Docs.
A little iPhone Photography of Vancouver to end this post.
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