Comments for The Ectoplasmic Connector

Comment on Ignite SF – A Report by Wally Hartshorn

Wally Hartshorn — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 03:55:07 +0000

The bit about “Forget Venture Capital, Raise Social Capital!” caught my eye, because I’m nearly finished reading “Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community” by Robert D. Putnam. (If your blog allows HTML, here’s the link to the book at Amazon.)

The term “social capital” is used in this book more in the sense of a sense of community — being involved, watching out for each other, etc.

The title comes from the observation that, once upon a time, huge numbers of Americans participated in bowling leagues. Today, very few people do so. This phenomenon extends way beyond bowling, of course. All sorts of measures of community participation are dramatically lower than they used to be.

That wouldn’t really matter except that there are very strong connections between levels of community involvement and things like crime, school dropout rates, teen pregnancy rates, suicide rates, heart attack rates, etc.

Whether this book has much relevance to “building a good social network around your company”, I don’t know, but it’s a very good book in any case! :-)

Comment on Is it really good to know who’s watching? by Jill

Jill — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 17:43:23 +0000

I think the facebook version of tracking is a lot less invasive then some others, because at least you can control what others see, and block what you don’t want them to see. The form of trackers that I think is invasive are the hidden ones, because if you are just looking through a bunch of random peoples’ pages, you can be perceived as stalking, which is unfortunate, because isn’t the point of facebook supposed to be that you can connect with people in your network? To for example my coming to this website–I was just browsing the web and I came across it–that doesnt mean I’m stalking you–I don’t even know who you are.

I think the unhealthy part is trying to figure out who’s into you, because it kind of shows a narcissistic attitude: who’s paying attention to me; and if someone’s not, then why aren’t they? The defense that someone is using hidden tracking devices as a tool to see if someone is stalking them is just inane–if someone is really and truly stalking another person, then the stalkee will definitely know without being told by a hidden tracker. The good thing about facebook is that if someone strange is constantly showing up on a person’s page, then everyone else will know about it as well–so getting away with that sort of creepy behavior is far less likely to happen.

Comment on BoingBoing summary of Google Street View and privacy concerns by Dave

Dave — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 03:44:42 +0000

I think the Google street view presents a totally interesting study in proxemics. People are willing to walk down the street and take a leak in the bushes, but if they somehow end up on the internet, it’s an invasion of their privacy. What’s the solution? The dude pissing in the street says no more street view, despite its unbelievable radness and advancement of technology, when in all rational reality the solution is… tada! DON’T PISS IN THE BUSHES.

Funny. I am glad I own GOOG stock :)