I had dreamed of something like this awhile ago, but I didn’t imagine it would be a reality so soon (assuming it’s even close to real). On one level, assuming it’s safe, it presents great potential for easy access to information (think web surfing on your arm) or a communication device (think never losing your cell phone again). On another, this crosses the line into bionics, merging the human body with machines. It’s a fuzzy line — we put all kinds of medical technology in our bodies — but typically it’s an artificial replacement for an existing body part, not an intrusion of a device that historically is used only through external sensory organs like a telephone.

This is body piercing of the future. But it’s more. It begs us to consider how far we’ll go for the sake of communication convenience. I’m not saying I won’t be tempted to try this like another gadget. But its a little more invasive than trying on a new cell phone or pair of pants. Perhaps one day our bodies will contain a subcutaneous layer from head to toe that means we’ll never have to wear clothes. We just dial it up day to day — even program it in advance based on your meeting schedule. Wouldn’t that save us all a lot of time in the morning?

Think about the possibilities — a built-in stopwatch and heart rate monitor for runners, a GPS locator for people in trouble or who have been kidnapped (and also potentially the first thing a kidnapper cuts out of his victim), a built-in time-sucker (imagine playing Bejeweled on your arm — they are endless).

But there is something even more intriguing about this. A device that runs on human blood. Our bodies waste tremendous amounts of energy. I’m not saying we should all turn ourselves into batteries, but this is a creative approach to alternative energy. This is the kind of thinking that will free us of fossil fuel consumption.

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Andy Swindler Categories: Gadget, Green, Technology

More people than ever are able to create content on their own, purely for the sake of creation rather than making money. This will lead to virtual groups of people spread across great geographic distances sharing knowledge about groups of citizen media pieces that most people have never heard of. The idea of mainstream movies, TV, magazines, and radio will fall away as people favor media microcosms that are so finely tuned to their perspective and history that the bonds of relation are truly genuine rather than averaged across surveys and focus groups.

What will this do for water cooler discussions across our great land? And can the water cooler itself be replaced by a virtual hub of banal daytime interest?

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Andy Swindler Categories: General, Social Media, Web

We are no longer bound only to revolutionary thought. Every whim has merit in a world where publishing is free.

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Andy Swindler Categories: General, Social Media

Wal-Mart has successfully set the bar for low prices and mediocre quality. So eventually people will start expecting better quality, or healthier products (organic, green, etc), but I doubt very much they’ll be willing to pay more for them. It is therefore Wal-Mart’s responsibility to find new ways of producing, developing, and delivering products that meet these new demands. And perhaps they will. But first we have to demand it.

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Andy Swindler Categories: General, Green

I imagine that people will find it much simpler to post a problem with a product to a blog than to contact the company. Even posting to a company blog would hopefully get to where it needs to go to affect change, but not likely trickle back to fixing the specific problem at hand.

It’s pretty unreasonable to expect a company to troll every personal blog in the world to find product issues. Naturally it’s a person’s responsibility to get an issue resolved, but I feel there will be a tendency for people to do this, and then get even more aggravated when nothing happens.

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Andy Swindler Categories: Social Media, Web

Blogs are simply the first widespread form of free content expression. People are happy to put it out there, even if they don’t get celebrity or acclaim. Big business could take some cues from this. Of course most bloggers aren’t worried about the bottom line, but there are things we can all learn about the success of taking a leap to trust that people will actually end up providing you with more creative revenue streams the less you control their content. Consumers are just that — people who consume. They are happy to pay money. But a reasonable amount that doesn’t include padding, profit, or even distribution models and expenses that have no future.

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Andy Swindler Categories: Social Media, Web

One day, probably not too far from today, we will never need to visit any particular web site to get the information container therein.

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Andy Swindler Categories: Marketing, Social Media, Web

I found this post from a former CNN producer fired for writing a blog to be quite enlightening. I feel very close to this issue. As a student of journalism at Medill, it took me nearly three years to realize that the field of mainstream journalism had lost the appeal it had held for me in my childhood. And at the time (late nineties) smaller news organizations simply didn’t have the reach horsepower to affect the kind of change I believed journalism was all about.

So I found a home studying communications, which is at the root of all journalistic intent. It has been difficult for me to articulate any specific complaint about mainstream journalism, but I have for years felt an overwhelming sense of disappoint with the establishment and the marginalized voices through which it speaks. Pazienza speaks eloquently to this issue and I hope that mainstream media takes note.

This is what social media is about. More than power of the people. Power TO the people. I was quick to dismiss blogs in the early days as well, finding it difficult to imagine they would ever break through the veil of relevance. Moreover, I believed that blogs weren’t the answer to the broken system of credibility and filtering since they seemed simply to do away with these factors. And they have, to a limited degree. But when you look at the statistics it’s hard to believe now that this form of expression isn’t well on its way to revolutionizing all the media channels, and perhaps all corporate attitude and infrastructure for that matter.

The tug of war between mainstream and social media will lead us to something better. They are not at odds, however, and in fact form a symbiosis where each relies upon the other. But I’m not sure either realizes that, or if they do what it will take to admit it. It will take more than rampant adoption by the tech community, who are first out of the gate for any new technological form of expression, and topical nepotism (social media blogs) to break through to the masses. Most of the people in my life aren’t touched by blogs at all, and that’s the simple truth.

It was once the case that journalism had a type of integrity that did require an institution to maintain. But now that institution is built without rules and walls. Society dictates it as a whole. It is etiquette for effective communication rather than self preservation that makes it all work. Let’s see how long this lasts.

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Andy Swindler Categories: General, Marketing, Social Media, Web

I’ve been struggling with this digital rights issue on the Kindle. I’ve determined that it’s not the best interface for keeping up with blogs. I’d really just rather use NewsGator, which syncs with NetNewsWire on my laptop and my iPhone, which provides a full-color screen and more robust web browsing than the Kindle. I’ve grown quite fond of the Kindle for long stretches of reading (that’s the point of the electronic paper, which I seem always to want to call electronic ink) but I don’t see as much value for blogs, where I’m reading them here and there in much shorter patches of time. Additionally, the whole idea of getting charged to subscribe to a blog seems a little anti-blog. True, I’m paying AT&T for data service on my iPhone, but I’m paying that anyway.

So if I’ve determined that the Kindle’s network capabilities don’t hold much advantage, then why not go with Sony’s USB sync model? The Kindle already has me reading more than I used to (go Kindle!) but I still don’t read dozens of books at a time. What would be the problem with buying a few eBooks that would probably last me months or even years. What are the chances of needing an emergency book purchase?

I rarely buy music from iTunes due to lower quality than CD (a 30-year old technology!) and digital rights management. But that’s because I listen to music in many different places and want to have control. The whole point of electronic paper products is that they provide a superior reading experience than any computer. Part of this is the limitations of traditional LCD screen technology, and part of this is the idea that nobody wants to curl up on the couch with a laptop for hours (though many of us do so on a regular basis).

I would even pose the argument that the Kindle’s network capability goes against the idea of unplugging and curling up with a book. The Internet connection is not a constant distraction or temptation, but it is there. Part of me likes the syncing metaphor for the idea that you could then take your book to a park, sit under a tree and read (thanks to being able to read the screen in sunlight), and truly leave the networked world behind.

It may be that Amazon’s biggest value at this point is their library, including the ease with which one can access it. Even when Apple jumps into this game, they are going to be lagging behind, having to form relationships with publishers as they did with the music industry. It won’t take them terribly long to catch up (I would say months not years), but Amazon’s got the edge for now.

The designers of Amazon’s “Your Collection” web site need to take a hard look. This interface feels years behind and it takes far too long to get to what I want. Just trying to unsubscribe to a couple of blogs took nearly 20 minutes. If there is any advantage to the Kindle’s network capabilities, it should be the ease with which one can manage these services from the device. It would take took long to identify all the problems with this part of the web site, but an example is logging me out after being inactive, sending me to a screen that doesn’t store any login info, then once logged back in, NOT taking me where I was when I left.

All in all, the etch-a-sketch for adults still shows great promise, but most importantly, I’m using it today and reading more quality content than ever. No more sitting in doctor’s offices or jury rooms with nothing to read but Cosmo.

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Andy Swindler Categories: Gadget, General, Technology, Web

I subscribed to a science blog to get a little more plugged into that community and learn more about the subject of 137 Films, a Chicago-based not-for-profit documentary film company on which I serve as a board member. I was reading this through my Kindle (it was one of the few blogs I still subscribed to through Amazon) and found this post providing a real-time first-hand play-by-play of a vasectomy.

At first this might be easy to dismiss as exhibitionist (there’s an argument for all blogging in that category), but what struck me was the purpose of this post. It was written in response to a number of comments made by men who believed that it’s the woman’s responsibility rather than the man to have surgery when a couple is done having kids. That argument will go on forever and is private to each couple. There is no wrong answer, but I happen to agree with this guy as the vasectomy seems far less invasive than tubal ligation.

The point of this was not so much exhibitionism, but rather to be used as an informative tool for men who did not want to have a vasectomy out of fear or misconception. I found it to be very compelling and I think it speaks to the power of an individual to turn a painful procedure into a constructive episode for others. I can only hope that it was successful in turning some opinions around through genuine education and may even lead to happier relationships as a result.

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Andy Swindler Categories: General, Social Media, Web