While central-hub-distributed messaging like Twitter can be a really powerful tool, I'm not sure if people know how powerful. I was calling it "opt-in telepathy" at first, and it was fun having all these people I liked nearby, kind of like they were in my head telepathically. But back in May, when the JPG Magazine debacle took place (and if you hadn't heard, I've been working for 8020 since the beginning of the year), some of my Twitter contacts used it as a platform to basically say how evil we all were, or how we had screwed up... but only one person, maybe two, used it to check in on me, to see how I was affected, how I was doing, if I was alright. And given that the short answer to that last question was "no," Twitter suddenly felt like an angry mob in my head, a bunch of people talking *at* me and not *with* me, or perhaps people who had forgotten I was even there. It may be awkward to say this, but I found that experience to be terrifying and alienating.

Shortly afterward, I deleted my Twitter account and I haven't looked back. Maybe I could get that positive, happy feeling with it back by limiting my use of it to my local, actually-hang-out-with-them-regularly friends and a few of my other internet peeps that I can trust to have more rational (or benignly irrational) dialogues. But--and I fully admit I'm not looking at this objectively, because at this point I can't--until people start getting a more holistic view of what systems like Twitter mean in terms of how we communicate with one another, and start using that knowledge more responsibly, I'm not going to feel good about participating and letting people into my head.

The level of presence on Twitter is just right, I feel. IM and IRC have too much presence (people can see when I'm online) while email has too little. It's one of the reasons why I really like Twitter but I've also found it's really hard to explain to someone who isn't yet Twittering.

I don't like IM and I have never gotten into it. When I am working or researching or reading or whatever, I don't like the pressure that I feel to pay attention and reply right then and there. I have two friends in my local area who really love IM, and I have them trained to call me when they want to chat because it is a local call. Very rarely do I feel the need to check in on IM and mostly it is just to see who is around who I would not see locally out and about.

I do like Twitter. I love the fact that it is asynchronous. I can check it when I have time, I can Tweet when I have time, and it is a group activity by and large, rather than a one on one IM. I know you can have group IMing, but might as well be on IRC. I also like to see what my varied and diverse set of friends in North America & Europa are up to or thinking about or...


What I have noticed over the years is that folks take to various communication technologies in ways that one wouldn't necessarily expect them to or in a way that the tech community didn't expect. Within my local circle of friends it can be confusing about which avenue of communication friends like best. I try to keep a tally in my head that friend #1 would prefer an email , friend #2 an IM, friend #3 an SMS/text, and friend #4 a phone call. After about 10 friends/family it tends to break down... It would be great if I could program a person's preference into my address book or phone's contact list.

What I am seeing is that most of my tech & SXSW friends are on Twitter & Flickr & Dopplr &.... But most of my local friends, both college and rock/club, either prefer email/text/IM/phone or they are seriously into MySpace (LA/LB music folk). I purposely gave up my MySpace account nearly 2 years ago, as I was sick of folks getting mad at me for not showing up to a dinner or party or what have you and later found out that they sent me a bulletin on MySpace and I hadn't logged in for a month.


;o)

This isn't related to the post, but it is related to this discussion we've been having in the comments: Welcome to the Naked Generation by Caroline McCarthy of CNET.

@jason: yes, danah was completely on my mind as i wrote that last sentence. and i also return to that flickr post i wrote a few months back as well as the Hillary 1984 ad.

even our private or semi-public moments (i.e., bar, house party) are fair game. it's nothing to upload a photo with a camera phone and beam it to flickr before either the photographer or the subject has had a moment to think about it the repercussions of doing so.

i once went to a private house party where the home owner was taping the party. i don't know what he did with that tape, but he could conceivably upload it to the web and tag it with the name of every guest in attendance.

in some ways, we're all going from being private figures to being semi-public ones. again: no matter what you or i do, we also have to depend on someone else not putting us on blast. it's something i try to be conscious of when i blog about conversations, or take photos of friends (no, seriously, i consider how public the person is in their own online life before posting a photo). but other folks ... ?

now that i think about it, i wonder what this will mean for media and communications law. does having a blog make you a public figure in the same way that being a singer does? after all, by starting a blog, you injected yourself into the public, right? or will it depend on your technorati rank?

This is a lot of what I talked about and was interested in at SXSW this year (and danah boyd has written effectively about this as well). Privacy is a component of all this but, really, it all falls under the guise of online identity and what we want out of it. I've pretty much given up on the idea of online privacy. If someone wants to find you, they will. Rather, I want people to know that when they search for "Jason Toney" they are going to get me. Whether that is twitter or facebook or what have you. I think it's more about how we think about the internet than about how the internet tools are built that's important.

The user has to understand that what goes on the internet matters and isn't disposable (even though kids think of online identity as disposable). That isn't to say we shouldn't attempt to control and maintain access but it really is an illusion.

The moment someone pulls up a profile or site of ours on a public screen it's no longer private. I can't control who you show my sites too or my tweets or whatever. I see private tweets screen grabbed and published on flickr.

I can control, to some extent, how I present myself online and work to make how I present myself the dominant identity for me.

I don't worry about stalking so much with Twitter. It's far easier to check WHOIS data. Or check my SXSW bio and know that I worked at Georgia Tech. Or see a photo that someone else took of me and posted on Flickr with my name as a tag and know that I was in Austin last March.

Online stranger danger isn't half the threat that real-world crazy is, though it does exist.

I'm also not worried about giving the government too much data. They already have most of what they'd need to find or track you, especially if you own property. Birth records, your address, who you bank with (remember your bank reports interest data come tax time), how much money you make (on the books at least), and where you work is all info that gets reported to the government already. If you take out a book at the public library, that info is available. Take a flight, it's available. Use your credit card anywhere, and it is duly noted.

I've given up on privacy to a large degree. It's all trackable and traceable. Although you might be tight with your data, you still have to depend on other folks not to eff up; that is, unless you pay cash for everything. And even then, the ATM has you on tape, the bank can pinpoint your withdrawal location, and wherever you purchased your goods probably has security cameras too. Technology, now more than ever, has made privacy a state of mind rather than an actuality.

I know with all I talk about presence, and though I see its benefits to both networking and social sharing, and let's not mention what it will do for the targeted advertising industry, I still have some concerns about it all. First, there's the fact that all of this information is in Google. Great assistance for stalkers and predators. That's why people have to pay close attention to privacy features on sites and how they're sharing information. Do you really want Google to tell someone where you ate dinner and who you ate with?

On the conspiracy theory side of it all -- with Google now working with the Government with Government search, I'm sure there are concerns about just how much information the Government has access to about you. Yeah, good ole big brother is watching.

That's funny you wrote on Twitter, I wrote a post on this back in July on how "I finally get it." hope you get a chance to read it.

http://tinyurl.com/2738nr

have a great day and thank you for all you share

p.s. And add me to your twitter network, LOL (darrenkeith3 is my twitter name)