Logic’s End

The Android!

After spending a week with my Google Android powered Motorola Droid smart phone, I have to admit that the remarkable little device has won my praise and support in spades. It is every bit as adept at handling social media as the fabled iPhone–actually excelling in a couple of areas–and makes other competitors appear almost prehistoric by comparison. 

Most importantly, Android has achieved such noteworthy success with a mere fraction of the Apps that Apple has in its marketplace. Android developers are only just getting started. The ingeniously gallery App in the free Android 2.1 update makes the camera more usable and powerful. Photos are automatically grouped and sortable by date, and they’re easier to scroll through by the dozen. Those of you that have used CoolIris have already seen the concept of the Google Gallery App in action. If recent reports from PCWorld are accurate, then Android has only begun to hit its growth spurt. It may soon contend with Apple’s formidable numbers as the greatest purveyor of Apps. 

I digress… Although debating one smart phone’s merits over another is almost as sure to stir up an argument in your favorite pub as saying: “You were raised by squirrels!” It’s beside the point. The smart phone with the most Apps, greatest number of users, or best network coverage doesn’t matter all that much in the grand scheme of things. Support, regardless, is building in the developer community like wildfire, and Apps are decidedly here to stay. Nonetheless, the very idea of an App driven Internet raises some serious questions about the future of how we interact with our technology. 

Many of my fellow writers, friends and scholars have recently broached the question: how do Apps effect society in general? After some thought, I thoroughly reject the notion that Apps are a regressive step back to the consumerist, TV-driven society of the 1980′s. To uphold that argument, I would have to demonstrate that we have little more than tangential interaction with our smart phones (no more than can be had with a DVR). Those writing blogs would be falling off the face of the Internet, replaced by vague booking narcissists and other unscrupulous hooligans (I don’t get to use that word enough). The very idea that Apps are destroying everything that Web 1.0 and 2.0 content creators inspired is absolutely ridiculous. 

If anything, our smart phones are helping increase our production of thoughtful content, all while making the use of technology more efficient and less frustrating. Feel the need to update your blog while taking a walk in your nearby beautiful park on a pristine sunny day? WordPress has an App for that! Wish you didn’t have to wait to transfer and sort those photos from an exciting night with your friends over to your computer before uploading them to your Facebook profile? Android and iPhone have you more than sufficiently covered with Apps for that too! 

So if the production of content fits so seemlessly into our lives, how then are we to claim that we’re being reduced to the level of incompetent consumers? Using the Wall Street Journal’s Mobile Reader as a justification for the return of consumerism is an indication of a unjustified, fallacious argument.

Assuming Apps slow our thoughts down at all, they thereby help develop them more clearly (more reading, contemplation and research may take place before writing). The fact that we can read our content when it’s convenient for us–not to mention contribute social feedback–is the antithesis of blind consumerism. If practiced regularly, it might even help make us more intelligent, informed, active and aware citizens.

We’re on the verge of yet another revolution in the way we use technology. Apps are the vehicle delivering us to the other side. Those who spent hours reading in front of a computer screen might be able to see the light of day again enjoying an e-book or newspaper outdoors! Whether you own an Kindle, Nook, iPad, iPhone, Motorola Droid or Palm Pre, you’re actively contributing to the most innovative application of technology since perhaps Arpanet. It’s not just consumers who will benefit, businesses can leverage the power of Apps too. Amazon’s Android App, using image and bar-code recognition, is just the tip of the potential iceberg of rewards that Apps can help reap for businesses of all types and sizes.

All told, I guess you could claim that I’m pretty satisfied with my new Google Android phone!

A cup of enlightenment

Sitting at a booth in my new favorite coffee lounge, Coffee Culture of Buffalo, I find that nothing more efficacious than the espresso in a creamy caramel latte for inspiring me to write. With the portability of my new netbook (almost 9 hours of battery life), I actually write more often. It’s simply so easy to take it places where my thoughts best reach their boiling point. Thus, having long sounded alarm of technology gradually dehumanizing us and supplanting real human interaction, I’ve noticed a burgeoning shift back in the other direction, a technological “enlightenment” or renaissance if you will.

Using a computer isn’t restricted to nerds in their mother’s basements anymore. I think nothing made that more clear than the day when my 70 year old father signed up for Facebook, god bless you dad. It’s no longer about how fast your computer is, it must be usable, mesh with our lives, and not get in the way. Take mobile phones, there’s little more revolutionary in consumer technology than what’s taking place in that industry. We’ve witnessed apps for everything from turning on our cars to reading the Wall Street Journal. As the iPhone and the Google Android gain ground, it’s destined to get better.

If our mindsets remained restricted to that of the 1990′s, sitting at an unwieldy cathode tube computer screen with a large noisy box next to it, then there would have been no progress. There would be no Facebook, Twitter, or Foursquare–no revolutionary Bloggers birthing a new form of media. Technology had to adapt to humans to truly take hold.

Every inception of technology, however, brings with it means of misuse, of which we would be wise to take heed. Having 2,000 friends on Facebook doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re more social, nor does tweeting every 5 seconds. It might in fact be a sign of a narcissistic obsession. Vague-booking (writing an long, overly-emotional, and cryptic status messages on Facebook) really can make you seem like an unstable, self-loathing sociopath.

We ought not become so obsessed with this astonishing technology that we allow it to dominate our lives. There are some things best done in person. Nothing is more frustrating than arguing with someone via AIM or text message, nor anything more rude than tweeting or texting while on a date (I’d advise dumping that person with haste if you encounter it). Some of the best inventions in history–the gun, fire, or electricity–have all found their way into the hands of their abusers. The important thing to remember is this: used in the right measure, they stand to complement our lives.

One captivating way of using social media is as a form of psychological support. I’ve seen coworkers quit smoking with the inspiration from fellow ex-smokers reading their blogs and tweets. Moreover, from a business perspective it has the potential to connect owners to their customers; a hand typed blog with comments and feedback about their products can truly help inspire buyer confidence more than a static website ever could.

Focusing more on the business side of things, how can all this stuff help if you’re a retail business that doesn’t have an interest in selling products online? Maybe you own a coffee shop? I present to you Foursquare. Foursquare utilizes mobile phone apps to give retail business owners a direct line to their guests the minute they walk in the door. For us consumers, that goes a long way toward helping us too. How many times have you clipped a coupon and left it at home? With foursquare your local Starbucks could know when you walk in because you would notify them with a simple tap of your Foursquare app, and the eligible coupons could stream directly to your phone.

As I bring this rather lengthy post to a close, I’d just like to highlight that if there is to be a bold new technological renaissance, mobility will be the vessel that delivers it. The new web is compartmental. People want access to information that’s most relevant for what they’re doing when they’re doing it. Sure, a proper website will always be the anchor of a business presence, but there’s so much more that we as consumers want from our gadgets. We’re a society increasingly on the go, thus technology will continue to adapt to us. We just need to be careful not to allow it to replace the fuel of our souls: real human social interactions.

Over the weekend I took the opportunity to take in a film called “State of Play” starring Russell Crowe and Ben Affleck. I wasn’t so much as interested in the story as I was the underlying premise, a testament to traditional journalism contrasted with the all-too-common diatribe of the new media blogging community: the idea that blogs have a distinct purpose that ought not replace nor be confused with that of traditional media.

Blogs are particularly appealing by the nature and rapidity of the material they produce. A traditional newspaper is governed by the time it takes to print and publish daily. A blog has no such governor. Its content can be delivered hourly. Couple that with targeted advertisements and page rank influence generated by frequent content and you have an Internet phenomenon.

The most significant problem with blogging, much like other modern technology, is that it is easily abused–even if the publisher is well versed in the topic at hand and writing with the best of intentions. The time governor on traditional media journalism such as newspapers goes a long way to ensure the proper development of thoughts and ideas. Unlike blogs, it’s easier to get the whole story in a newspaper and formulate a prudent response or opinion, rather than react minute-by-minute.

Thus, newspapers and traditional media, by their nature, assist readers in thinking through issues more clearly and developing more informed opinions. This is not to say that newspapers cannot be slanted, opinionated, or otherwise misused. They can be. However, the same applies to any media outlet.

Thus I arrive once more at my thesis: blogs have a purpose as newspapers and traditional media has its purpose. The purpose of blogs would seem to not be news. Blogs are a great tool for community development, something that can bring people together to communicate quickly about an issue facing a community. One example I’ve personally witnesses is http://www.stopthecap.com. People came together as a group and collectively put pressure on Time Warner.

From a business perspective, blogs can serve a purpose there too. They take forums to another level, allowing for better two-way communication between product and development teams and users. When given a common theme and thesis for their content, blogs can help develop new product offerings and improve those already in existence.

The days of blogging just to blog, the Internet diaries of the 1990′s aren’t over. They are an important part of some people’s lives, giving them a sense of purpose. However, the use of blogs in a professional environment must be a refined, targeted, and purpose-driven process. They are an excellent tool for keeping our businesses and traditional media, even our politicians, honest.