Our digital lifestyle, content publishing, privacy - a good thing

A USA Today article decries the loss of privacy as a result of everyone having a camera phone & the easy ability to publish content.

Far East Asia, then Europe and now the US is realizing the implications of our near 'always-recording' lifestyle in the 21st Century. From 2003, Camera phones banned in changing rooms of leisure centre.

There are positives: at the bottom of the US Today article, it mentions the Dog Poop Girl whose refusal to clean up her dog's mess on the Seoul subway was captured and posted and resulting social shame and capitulation. User generated journalism (most famous being Korea's OhMyNews) and consumer crime prevention (eg text your incriminating photos to your local police station) are other examples.

It is said that you shouldn't put anything in an email that you don't want published on the front page of the NY Times. See this list of career-limiting email blunders (the Claire Swire email, US banker in Korea from 2001).

However, what struck me was that teenagers / early twenties have ONLY lived in an era with the ability to snap 'n' publish content so willingly. Now these students are looking for a job little realizing that all those photos from yesteryear might come to haunt them.

I do think camera phones, the easy ability to post content will make for a cleaner and more just society - it will certainly make things harder to conceal in public.

Blogging to peak in 2007??

Gatner (they appear to be busy don't they!) states that the number of blogs will peak at 100 million (widely reported, but see BBC summary). It states that 200 million people have already stopped writing their blogs.

So Gartner sees a ceiling approaching. I disagree - I think we'll see an increasing number of people posting online (and not only via the internet, but mobile-based too), but 'blogging', in its current format, implies a continuous stream of thought, expressed freely to all.

But sharing of thoughts and ideas, images and video is both:

• directed (ie to particular people) and
  
• fractured (starts, may last a short period of time and then naturally dies, possibly starts again)

As always, the key is who's in the conversation and context & relevancy. Privacy (or at least the reassurance of the availability of privacy) is very important. That's why services like etribes and vox allow you to create 'channels' for you and your colleagues and friends. (An idea that I endorse - hence the domain that I use here: stream121.)