My Experience with Tethered Technology

As the discussion about generative vs. tethered technology went on, I noticed that the example used was the iPhone vs. the Apple II.

This caught my eye because for the past two and a half years, I've been the proud owner of an iPhone. I was one of the first ones to get it back in the summer of 2007, and I haven't upgraded since. When it first came out, it was certainly a prominent example of "tethered" technology. It had several great features, such as full web browser, the ability to check stocks, YouTube, and of course the iPod itself. Still, there was the feature of being able to grow that was missing.

Since then, iPhone has started to push back some of the boundaries that pre-programmed phones come with. It started in 2008 when Apple allowed iPhone users to download songs from an iTunes application that came from a software update. Then Apple released the App store application, and all hell broke loose. Soon iPhone users (discounting myself) had several pages worth of apps, including the useful (Spanish-English dictionary) to the useless (online drinking games).

Looking back, I would say that although my iPhone did not initially have all the great generative stuff that comes with today's iphones, I don't think that having a tethered piece of technology was all that bad.

First of all, the comparison with Apple II is, I think, a bit unfair. As groundbreaking as iPhone was for cell phones, Apple II was earth shaking for computers. The technology in 1977 was not nearly as developed as it was 10 years later, so of course Apple II would have to be a generative type of technology; if it was tethered then computers would not be the same as they are today, since there would be no innovation.

Technology is so advanced today that there is nothing that Apple could put on its' iPhone that they can't do themselves. Sure, Apple could have made iPhone a piece of generative technology, and they would have subsequently lost millions of dollars in possible revenue. Also, consider this; iPhone 8g models were priced around $500 a pop, and I think if iPhone was generative right off the bat, Apple would have never been able to lower their prices, because they would have never gotten the revenue that these applications bring. After Apple entered into licensing agreements with companies like eBay, Facebook, etc. they were able to make even more money.

Of course, having tethered technology does come with some problems. iPhone, while not as tethered as its initial release in 2007, is still an example of the "Walled Garden", where Apple and AT&T is the gatekeeper. That means whenever I have a problem, I have to deal exclusively with these two companies, instead of being able to switch services. Still, I don't think tethered technology does not have to mean bad technology, and iPhone is living proof of that.

We the Tweeple

According to the latest RealClearPolitics average, Congress' job approval rating stands at a dismal 27 percent, with 64 percent disapproving of how Capitol Hill has handled things.

To be sure, the country has seen better days. In the last year and a half, we've seen a global financial crisis, two wars, a bloodbath over health care reform, crippling deficits, and an energy crisis that although largely forgotten about, will surely hurt our citizens even more if the United States does not develop domestic alternative energy sources here at home.

Still, it's not just the public's dissatisfaction with the way Congress has reacted to these problems, or even the solutions put forward. It's also the perception that Congress, fair or unfair, is out of touch and elitist. That members of Congress believe that they know what's best for ourselves better than we do.

It's that perception that has made certain members of Congress in an unfamiliar spot: vulnerable for defeat, as this new poll for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) demonstrates.

So what are our representatives to do? Well first off, they can undergo an image makeover, as G. Gordon Liddy suggests. Liddy, a former Nixon aide sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for his role in the Watergate scandal, now has a nationally syndicated radio show that reaches millions of listeners. On Capitol Hill yesterday, speaking in front of yours truly and a group of members of the House, Congresswoman Jean Schmidt (R-OH) asked Liddy what they could do to get the people to like them.

Liddy responded that members of Congress should reach out to ordinary, everyday folks in order to combat this perception. That they should go up to an everyday person, who will cast their vote for or against you in the next election, and say hello, talk to that person, get a sense of how they're feeling. Even a letter from a Congressperson, even if its' a form letter, means a great deal to people.

That is where Twitter comes in. Politicians have for the last couple years have tried to reach out to voters as new technology develops. Most high level elected officials now have comprehensive websites, Facebook pages, and YouTube channels. I always assumed that clearly it was not the elected official that was updating the webpages, but members of his staff.

With Twitter however, it's different. Some politicians do tweet themselves, or at least they give the perception that it is them on Twitter. This perception, or reality, allows constituents to reach out directly to their representative.

One sign that Twitter is reinventing the way politicians reach out to the people is the website TweetCongress. Their goals are simple and laid out on the front of the page. "To form a more perfect government, establish communication, and promote transparency." They list members of Congress who tweet, and provide useful stats to show who is active and who is not. Best of all, there is a community page where one can see how the people are trying to reach out to those who represent them in Washington.

In terms of who is winning the Twitter war, a look at the TweetCongress' stats will show which side is winning the Twitter war.

According to TweetCongress, the number one Tweeter is none other than Sen. John McCain, who's total tweets is more than five times the number of tweets the second place holder on that list, which is Sen. Claire McCaskill. The most active Tweeters are the Senate Republicans. Currently locked in a war with the Obama Administration and Senate Democrats over health care reform, the Senate GOP produces a bi-weekly web show called the "Senate Doctors Show" starring Sens. Tom Coburn M.D. and John Barasso M.D.

Most importantly, TweetCongress rates who is the most conversational, that is, who actually Tweets like a normal person would on Twitter, and who is the most political. The top five most conversational are all Republicans, and four of the five most political are Republicans as well.

Right now the GOP is winning the Twitter war. For Democrats who used new media effectively well in the 2008 election to get Barack Obama elected to the presidency, this should be unacceptable. At a time where they should be using every possible avenue to get their message out, they are missing the train on Twitter.

As Barack Obama and the Democrats continue to push a health care reform proposal that will change the way America does health care, and that will affect millions of Americans who vote, they should be trying to shake the image that they are elitist, out of touch, and think they know better for the people than they do. In these difficult times, every politician, whether they are vulnerable in 2010 or not, should be reaching out to the Twitterverse, and letting them know that they do indeed have their best interests at heart in Washington.

OFA and Online Political Activism

Last November, 131 million people came out to the polls to elect Barack Obama the 44th President of the United States. Simultaneously, the voters gave Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid a bigger Democratic majority in Congress.

Part of that victory resulted in engaging voters that had rarely voted before, as well as younger voters that had never voted in their lives through a vigorous new media campaign centered on getting voters involved.

A year later, and Barack Obama the Democratic National Committee faces a tough road ahead. They were swept in the two governors races in Virginia and New Jersey by the GOP, and by all accounts, the Democratic voter base was not energized.

Organizing for America was set up to do just that; energize the Democratic base in years that Barack Obama's name was not on the ballot. Organizing for America is not simply a website dedicated to promoting the President's agenda, it's a multi-faced, user friendly, social networking site designed to get supporters of the President engaged when they need it the most.

Even if you're not a fan of the President or his agenda, you have to be impressed by the website. The website keeps track of how much you have been active for the President. Calls made, doors knocked on, etc.

One can post blogs, share stories, and connect with fellow users. I've also gotten e-mails telling me to contact my Congressman on health care reform. It's just like Facebook, only it's for a purpose.

By all accounts, the Democrats will have a fight on their hands as a re-energized Republican Party tries to take seats in Congress. Consequently, this website is going to grow even more important as we look forward to 2010.

Are Blogs Destroying Journalism?

As I was revisiting Artie Lange's incredible destruction of Joe Buck's show, I remembered a controversial clip from Buck's HBO predecessor, Bob Costas, about a segment on his show detailing sports blogs, and how they blur the line, (and I'm paraphrasing) "truth and rumor" and "commentary and insult." (video HERE)

Costas was joined on this panel by then-Deadspin editor and founder Will Leitch, Journalist Buzz Bissinger, and New York Jets wide receiver Braylon Edwards. It started out as a serious discussion about the rise of sports blogs, and the positives and negatives that come as a result of this rise. Buzz Bissinger however, came to start a fire, and he immediately tries to burn the entire house down.

Bissinger's main point is simple, Leitch is not a journalist. In a world where the lines of journalism, Bissinger doesn't believe Leitch is qualified to pose as a journalist in a forum in which he can. Leitch on the other hand defends his work, essentially saying that while blogs are inherently democratic, it takes work to maintain a blog.

Costas also brings up posts on the comment page in regards to a journalist leaving ESPN and posters insulting the journalist. Yet, as I posted last week, NJ.com, a legitimate source of news that feeds stories from the Star-Ledger and other newspapers, allows comments on their stories and consequently, people leave comments that some may determine to be inappropriate. So I think Costas doesn't have a point. If he want to blame Leitch, he should first blame legitimate news sources, starting with Costas' own employer, NBC sports.

For my part, I sympathize with Bissinger. Agree or not with his behavior, Bissinger is a legitimate journalist, who wrote the book that would become the TV show Friday Night Lights. He spent thirty-plus years working his craft, only to see a new medium emerge to push his medium out of the spotlight, his medium being the newspaper.

While I don't agree with his assessment that blogs are dedicated to "cruelty," I certainly agree with his concern about the lines blogs blur. There are journalists, and then there are people posing as journalists, and Leitch desires to be the newsman without following the guidelines newsmen need to follow. For example, regarding bias, Leitch is a fan of the St. Louis Cardinals. While there is nothing wrong with that, there's something wrong with openly admitting it and putting a spin on any news that involves the Cardinals.

Blogs are based on speed. Therefore, I do think the quality will go down. However, among the positives are blogs is that it's no longer just Bissinger writing on sports; it's Bissinger and the Jets fan sitting in the 15th row of the upper deck at the Meadowlands.

It's a wonderful advancement, but what needs to happen is the line between the blogosphere and the world of journalism must be clearly defined. Otherwise, we will see our news decline in quality, as Bissinger predicted.

Interactive New Media and the News

One of the most interesting parts of New Media is the accessability and abundancy of many different news sources on the internet. Before, many people had to watch TV or read their local newspaper to get the news.

Today, news is not only up to the minute, but also interactive. Many websites now publish their printed content online with the ability to comment. Now, when a story is printed online, hundreds of people can react in real time to the story, and other people can view the reactions online.

One example of interactive news is NJ.com, which features news from several New Jersey newspapers, including the Star-Ledger. NJ.com has a box that shows which stories have the most comments (LEFT). On a busy day, the top story uusally has more than 200 comments.

There are a host of benefits to this new interactive medium. Opinions are freely expressed, interaction is encouraged, and sometimes the posts are pretty funny. You can even trash the newspaper on their own website, like this commenter did in an article about Gov. Jon Corzine's loss in his campaign for re-election.

Posted by deceiverbo

November 04, 2009, 10:51PM

The Star-Ledger, despite being shell-shocked, is still able to put a spin on this election. Even if the voter shortfall in Union County, Hudson County and Newark cited above compared to 2005 was taken into account, Corzine would have still lost. And 1 million fewer voters than the 2008 election? Like they would have gone all to Corzine. Please spare us all. BO and the Democratic Party are failing to revive the economy and things are only getting worse.

Unfortunately, with this new type of interactivity, there are offensive comments that slip by, some of which go unregulated. They usually appear on the pages that feature hot-botton topics. One example is an article by Tom Moran advocating for the NJ state Legislature to use the lame-duck session to push through a bill to legalize gay marriage. What should be a civil debate on a legitimate news website quickly deteriorates into a free-for-all.

Posted by zumagong

November 05, 2009, 7:22AM

Nobody is telling anyone what to do. It's about allowing a union of two individuals who pay taxes and have families like anyone else. period. As far as redefining an "institution" -- it's already been redefined. Just ask Newt Gingrich and his four wives or Britney Spears. None of you so called Christians complained about that. And should we have "traditional" marriages that our founding fathers had? Women had no rights and had to cough up money to the husband. Interracial marriages were forbidden. We seem to only want to enforce the traditions we like and when its convenient. Put your money where your mouths are and demand that we ban divorce or make secondary marriages civil unions too!

Inappropriate comment? Alert us.

Reply to this comment | Post a new comment

Posted by joeb222

November 05, 2009, 11:00AM

Before you go around accusing others of bigotry, you ought to take a long hard look in the mirror and examine your own bigotry. Where do you get off deciding what "so called" Christians think about Newt Gingrich's private life? And what in heck does THAT have to do with the issue. Nothing. It's just a vehicle for you to engage in Christian-bashing, as bigots such as you prefer to do rather than actually discuss an issue with any intelligence.

At least you showed you don't need to be taken seriously.

As you can see, it doesn't always end up being an intelligent discussion.

For my part, I welcome this newfound interactivity. It represents another barrier being broken down between journalists and the people they write for. What needs to happen now is that websites like NJ.com should start censoring comments more frequently, and those who roam these websites and participate should learn lessons of civility. There's nothing wrong with arguing, but name-calling and lack of respect for other point of views contribute nothing to civil discourse.

Larry Johnson: A Football in the Mouth

Larry Johnson is used to having it all.

He was a star running back at his hometown school, Penn State, where he rushed for over 2,000 yards his senior year. He won the both the Maxwell and Walter Camp awards recognizing him as the best player in the nation.

Drafted by the Kansas City Chiefs, he became an All-Pro running back despite clashing with his head coach who told him to "lose the diapers." As of this season, Larry Johnson is the highest paid running back in the NFL.

Yet today, Larry Johnson faces an uncertain future, all over a couple of Tweets.

Larry Johnson and the Chiefs are struggling in 2009, with a 1-5 record and Johnson failing to live up to the 45 million dollar contract the Chiefs gave him in 2007. Once again, Johnson has clashed with his coach, only this time, instead of keeping in-house, he decided to make his feelings known to the world, on his Twitter account.

“my father got more creditentials than most of these pro coaches. … google my father!!!!!!!

My father played for the coach from “rememeber the titans”. Our coach played golf. My father played for redskins briefley. Our coach. Nuthn”

And as if that weren't enough, Johnson had to start insulting fans who replied to his tweets, including using gay slurs. Telling someone they had a "fag pic" and that they were a "Christopher Street boy," a reference to the gay pride event in New York held on Christopher St.

Obviously there is the concept of invisible audiences, that you never know who is viewing your profile. Larry Johnson did not keep this in mind when he made these statements. But there is a larger concept in play here, especially in the world of sports.

It used to be that conflicts between other players or players and coaches were handled in-house. Now, there is no way for a team to control what their players say. It can quickly turn into a PR nightmare for any team, as it did for the Chiefs in this case.

Now Johnson has been suspended pending an appeal, losing $600,000 a game. There's no way he can come back to the Chiefs at this point. He turns 30 next month, and despite his talent, running backs do fade away relatively quickly. He's in danger of an early end to his career and the loss of potentially millions of dollars, and it all happened in 140 characters or less.

On Moral Panic and DOPA

The article "The Moral Panic over Social Networking Sites" discusses legislation aimed at protecting kids online from child predators.

Three years ago, shortly before the hotly contested 2006 midterm elections in which Democrats won back control of Congress for the first time since 1994, a law was passed in the House of Representatives that would mandate that facilities receiving federal aid block minors from accessing commercial social-networking sites and chat rooms. This law, the Deleting Online Predators Act, passed by a wide margin, 410-15 in July, yet stalled in the Senate and was never signed into law.

Critics of the bill argued that it affected places like libraries and schools, and as a result, economically disadvantaged kids would not be able to access social networking sites like MySpace. Others argued that the bill simply would not work, and that the problem of online predators is simply exaggerated.

Of course, the bill did not stall because of the opponents. The bill stalled when Flordia Republican congressman Mark Foley was revealed to have sent inappropriate emails to male House pages. Coincidentally, this congressman was the chair of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, and had pushed for anti-sex offender laws over his 12 year tenure in the House.

Combined with the accusation that members in leadership positions, such as House Speaker Dennis Hastert knew about the e-mails before the went public, the Republican Party found itself in a position in which they had to somehow change the subject from Mark Foley to something else. Ergo, the bill stalled.

Still, the bill represented what many would call a moral panic as demonstrated below.

1. Concern-Online predators and social networking is something that has been on the minds of millions of people for years. Stories of young people being lured on the internet have been told many times. The popularization of the TV show "Dateline: To Catch a Predator" in which many of the perpetrators lure their fake prey online, may have also contributed to this concern. It's an issue that is on the minds of every parent, many of whom also vote.

2. Hostility-An us vs. them mentality had broken out at that time. This is one of the reasons why the bill passed with such a wide margin. In an election year, nobody wants to look soft on child predators.

3. Consensus-Self-explanatory. The consensus is of the 405 members of the House that voted for this bill.

4. Disproportionality-In the article, Danah Boyd cites a statistic in which out of the 300,000 child abductions that occur every year, only 12 are by strangers. Critics in the article argue that there are already filters in such places as libraries and schools, and that this would simply stifle online expression and prevent economically disadvantaged kids from accessing these sites. These claims do have some merit in my opinion. At the same time, if I were a member of Congress, I would have voted for this bill, for reasons I will explain below.

5. Volatility-This bill packs volatility. The consequences for any semi-vulnerable member who voted against this piece of legislation would be disastorous. Imagine their opponents, the DCCC, the NRCC, and other special interest organizations running ads accusing the congressperson of protecting child predators. It would be enough to make the Willie Horton ad look tame.

For the record, I would have voted for this bill. When I was in high school during the time when SNS was exploding in popularity, we were not allowed to access these sites during schooltime. I firmly believe that a school should be able to regulate access to certain sites if it undermines the academic mission of the school. Going online to MySpace during school hours would, in my opinion, do just that.

I do believe that the opponents of the bill have a point. Still, there's nothing wrong with being a little overreaction when it comes to children safety.

- Here are the names of the 15 representatives that voted against this legislation in 2006. All of them were liberal incumbents in safe Democratic districts.

John Coyners (D-MI)
Raul GrIjalva (D-AZ)
Maurice Hinchey (D-NY)
Mike Honda (D-CA)
Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)
Barbara Lee (D-CA)
Zoe Lofgren (D-CA)
Jim McDermott (D-WA)
Donald Payne (D-NJ)
Jan Schakowsky (D-IL)
Bobby Scott (D-VA)
Jose Serrano (D-NY)
Pete Stark (D-CA)
Diane Watson (D-CA)
Lynn Woolsey (D-CA)