Thoughts on Ambient Findability

[AlexReid]

Let's start with your identifying a passage in the text that you found interesting or confusing. Tell us what you think is going on there and how you see it connecting to the larger themes or concerns of the text.

[Rachael Goodrum]

I think that the idea that we will be able to find anything about ourselves before we even know it is a scary/weird concept. I also liked the discussion on the privacy issues that findability raises. The idea that hospitals can implant you with chips that last 20 years seems extreme and do you have a choice to get them in the first place and what if you want them out? I also like the discussion on wearable computers. The picture of the guy wearing the huge computer then through out the years it turns into a watch like device. It goes to show that technology is great because it can help up, for example i love email on my phone, but it also takes away our privacy. Things like child tracking devices on cell phones seems good until i think about if i would have wanted that as a child. It would have changed the way i grew up. And at what time do those things seem innappropriate? after 18? When are we old enough not to be tracked by parents. I think my greatest confusion is the clash of what I consider privacy. Are there constitutional rights being violated by neighborhood cameras or patient "tagging?"

[Alexandra Fish]

"These days, people use cell phones everywhere: in planes, trains, automobiles, grocery stores, golf courses, and bathtubs. During a half-marathon last summer, I saw a fellow runner with a cell phone held to his sweaty ear. In today's society, such behavior barely raises eyebrows. Conspicuous consumption is hip. Leather holsters, swivel belt clips, colored faceplates, and personalized ringtones transform consumer appliance into hi-tech fashion statement: everyware for everybody who's anybody. Until yesterday. Haven't you heard? Cell phones are passé. GSM smart phones are where it's at. Web, email, calendar, contacts, stereo, camera, television, and global positioning system in a single device. Moblogging from a ski lift in the Swiss Alps? Now that's cool. Checking email while driving? Not so cool, though I'm guilty as charged. As William Gibson says, "the street finds its own use for things." And that's part of the fun. The search space for novel uses of mobile devices is immense and stretches well beyond findability into art, business, education, entertainment, healthcare, politics, and warfare. We can read, write, buy, sell, talk, listen, work, play, attack, and defend."

I find this passage to not only be funny but spot-on. Cell-phones are everywhere. I remember as a kid getting on a plane on our annual trip to Florida, and being perplexed as to why there are a phone built into the seat in front of me. What could be so important to someone that they couldn't wait for 2 hours and 45 minutes to say? As time has passed and technology progressed, cell phones aren't just built into airplane seats, they have shrunken to form a small computer. I think it's amazing how the smart phones can do just about anything. I stare like a little kid at the TV when Apple advertises new applications for the iPhone.

This evolution of the cell phone is indicative of where we are going with technology. Everything will soon be combined into 1 device. Not just cell phones, but computers, televisions, etc. Morville discusses this in his book and tells us where we are probably going. Everything is accessible. You can grocery shop online or order food (something I've done and found to be wonderfully convenient when studying for finals). This text is conceptualizing the growth and conglomeration of technology. For a younger person like me, it's not so scary. But for my parents, they are terrified.

[hilary]

I thought the beginning of the book when it is describing the exact definitions of "findability" is very interesting. Morville goes on to talk about what findability means in the world today, with something as simple as typing in a keyword and finding whatever you are looking for. We rely so heavily on words, that they really become the basis of searching for anything in the digital world. On the cover of the book it says "what we find changes who we become" and I really believe that's totally true. It could be as simple as finding your way around a building, like he mentions, finding your way around a hospital, finding your way around a website. Keywords have become so powerful and especially websites like Google, Yahoo, MSN, Amazon, and eBay. You could type in the most simple word and get so many results, that you can always find what you are looking for on the internet. I really think it was interesting how he made this connection and described exactly how keywords create the idea of findability.

[AlexReid]

I have long been interested in the concept of marketplaces as conversations, which Morville references. This was articulated in a text called the Cluetrain Manifesto, which is available online. As Morville notes, this is about rethinking the rhetorical relationship between companies and consumers. The traditional mass-market relationship was one of "push." The corporations pushed media on us, but consumers had little or no way to respond. The Internet changes that dynamic. The authors of Cluetrain were arguing that the corporate world had better realize the changing nature of the rhetorical situation (or at least that's how I'd put it).

[Adam B]

I thought chapter 4 was one of most interesting chapters. Superficially, how can you not like all those gadgets and applications that blur the line between networked communications and us? Theory is important, but if we're going to have a networked world we'll need new ways of thinking about data and also new ways to access it everywhere. That's what this chapter was about, and the future really is here already, albeit in bits and pieces.

What's also interesting about the chapter is that these devices aren't just toasters that we can leave behind in the kitchen. These devices, and the information they bring to us (and send from us!) are going to be a part of our lives more and more..like, every minute of our lives. Do we want to be tagged? Will our ideas about being tagged change over the next few decades? How cyborg do we want to go? These questions about these technologies and devices are fascinating to me...the future, and answers, are practically here. For centuries, we've been able to talk about technology in a pretty "us & them" sort of way. That line will get blurrier.

Also, I think the technological side of the coming/ongoing networked world revolution is far outpaced by the theoretical side. For instance, we need superbatteries that talk to the Internet and play HD video for weeks on end on a charge sooner than later.

[Richard]

i find the talk about virtual world interesting. especially the virtual world of second life. as you well know second life is a virtual world where you can live a different life and actually make a real living off of it. but if you can't find your way through this world than you are as good as lost. only by counting buildings and remembering land scenes. Way finding has been used continually throughout video games to virtual worlds and military simulations. but does it play a useful role in the future of the web? All i will say is if it still works why get rid of it. if however it is quickly becoming outdated still use the system (procedure) while you are creating a new one. once the new one is completed than you can get rid of the old one

[James Duell]

I enjoyed the example of networking with nodes and links and using names of people. I thought it was interesting how similar real life networking with other people can be compared to networks on the Web. The "small world" phenomenon was interesting, it really shows how the huge the Internet is, with the "six/nineteen degrees of separation". It made me realize that if all a person did for their entire life was click through websites they could never see it all. I should really buy this book.

[Beth Guenthner]

I found "The average child in the United States watches four hours of television ever day. These kids are exposed to 20,000 commercials annually. They see 8,000 onscreen murders by the time they finish grade school" interesting. i think that the author is trying to tell us that some television shows are too violent for children to watch. This connects to the larger themes or concerns of the text because it shows how the television impacts society.