Way Beyond Web
October 8, 2010Posted by Kanga.
I wrote previously – Predictions of Future Past – about Internet predictions and what actually developed. I’m going to prattle on about this some more from a slightly different tack.
I’m amazed by the paradoxical ease and complexity of accessing information these days. We can google most anything, although the answers we find might raise more questions than certainties. (Notice how Google has become a verb?) The recent 50th anniversary of The Flintstones resulted in a discussion (via Facebook) about exactly when was Pebbles born. Googling led to conflicting answers and questions of which source could be believed. (If my students had any idea what The Flintstones was, I would use this as an example for how to evaluate sources. Unfortunately, it is not culturally relevant.) Anyway, I’m going with Feb 22, 1963.
I’ve talked about Twitter before and how important it has been for us in making friendships with a wide variety of people. For example, this week we had a dinner with 13 people (including us) in which 6 of those people were expats (foreigners like us) and 7 were locals (citizens). You will have to take my word on just how extraordinary that is. However, Twitter is also a major source of information about what is going on locally and in the world. Tweeps (people who twitter) read an interesting article on a news website or a blog and tweet a link to the article. I, being lazy or harried, rely on this referral system and use these links to go to articles that pique my interest. Yes, I could use RSS feeds to collect articles in an automated way, but I kinda like the added social aspect that the person who shared the link also read the article (I know there’s a bit of assumption there) and if I have a strong reaction or opinion about the content, I can “talk” with them about it.
Now, back in the “real” world, students are flocking into the library during their breaks to grab newspapers (in physical format), find an article and scan a copy of it on a daily basis. I have concluded that there is at least one professor who is convinced that the students must “learn to read newspapers” and is requiring the students to produce an article each day. There are teachers who are scandalized that these students have never touched a physical newspaper. But, let’s face it, newspapers are dead, they just don’t know it, yet. Most newspapers have websites where they post all their articles and possibly additional content. These websites have become quite sophisticated, well organized, searchable, and incorporate social media functions so that you can comment on what you read. The tradition of the leisurely breakfast with the morning newspaper is a luxury only the retired have. These students are not sitting down with the paper, reading it through, and coming away fully informed about what is happening locally and globally. Let go of format! Paper is dead, long live the web (until the next thing comes along). Content is where it is at. It doesn’t matter if it is carved in stone, painted on papyrus or sheep skin, inked on wood pulp, or displayed on screen.
Ironically, there are some “services” that are designed to take your Twitter feed and turn it into your very own personalized “newspaper.” At least one application for iPad combines your Facebook and Twitter to make a personalized “magazine” for you. Just how many interfaces do we need to filter our information through?
I don’t think that the word “web” describes the Internet accurately anymore. Maybe “fractal” would be more appropriate.
Living the Travel Channel 
No longer do I view such a dinner combination as extraordinary, being part of the thirteen, as the dialogue is very much of equals, no longer “them and us” or “us and them”!
The frustrating part of newspapers being online is that (a) you don’t always get the whole paper unless you subscribe (b) it is really hard to cut out comics to send to people in cards or letters or to hang them on your bathroom door (c) newspapers are much easier to use than screens for putting in bottom of cages and (d)hard copy papers are much easier to start a fire with than computer bytes. That said, Citizen Kane’s house would have been a whole lot easier to clean without them and their information is probably as nebulous as the stuff you can google! Just more local.
All the more reason to free your caged animals!