Social Media and Relativity

By    John Garner on  Thursday, May 19, 2011
Summary: Ahh, the times they are a changin' or maybe not as the beginning of social media brings up the same reactions as those of when the web came about...

Way back then,
I started out building websites back in the nineties when most people who I explained what I did would say "Aaah!?" while trying to wrap their head around the concept of machines connecting with each other and wondering what for. A few years later Internet was

My first proper site was for TOEIC France and because in 1996 the Internet was not a big priority, we registered toeic.com as it was free. Subsequently, the US TOEIC HQ gave us a real shouting at later on, not realising we had done them a big favour in catching the name before it was too late. Then in 1997 I worked on the Careers Advisory Service at Aston University, a site to help graduates find internships and jobs with my flatmate Paul Evans. Here's then and now...

A trip down memory lane because I'm constantly reminded when faced with people with titles like Digital Champion or Digital Officer etc with blockbuster type presentations that they only got interested in the Internet a little while ago.
If you're like me, you'll sit back astonished by sentences like "It only seems like yesterday that YouTube was born" translation: "I've only been interested in this digital stuff for a few years". Note: YouTube was created in 2005.
The same people weren't early adopters of the first generation iPod but boy do they like to show off their iPhone 4. Hence they'll tell you to build an iPhone app when they should convince you to build Android & IPhone apps, or maybe just one app that can be deployed to all platforms like Service2Media.

Jump back to now
To the point Social Media, is also one of those areas that like Internet in the past, is just at the beginning but advertising agencies really like it because they built it both front and back-end so that people require very little technical knowledge to use it.

http://mashable.com/2011/04/27/social-media-retail-purchases/ A new study says social media has almost no influence on online purchasing behavior.

Article written by  John Garner

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent Posts

Check out the most recent posts from the blog: 
Sunday, September 24, 2023
The reliability & accuracy of GenAI

I question the reliability and accuracy of Generative AI (GenAI) in enterprise scenarios, particularly when faced with adversarial questions, highlighting that current Large Language Models (LLMs) may be data-rich but lack in reasoning and causality. I would call for a more balanced approach to AI adoption in cases of assisting users, requiring supervision, and the need for better LLM models that can be trusted, learn, and reason.

Read More
Saturday, September 23, 2023
From Chatbots to Reducing Society's Technical Debt

I discuss my experience with chatbots, contrasting older rules-based systems with newer GenAI (General Artificial Intelligence) chatbots. We cannot dismiss the creative capabilities of GenAI-based chatbots, but these systems lack reliability, especially in customer-facing applications, and improvements in the way AI is structured could lead to a "software renaissance," potentially reducing society's technical debt.

Read More
Friday, June 16, 2023
The imbalance of power in the AI game: in search of the common good

The article discusses the contrasting debate on how AI safety is and should be managed, its impact on technical debt, and its societal implications.
It notes the Center for AI Safety's call for a worldwide focus on the risks of AI, and Meredith Whittaker's criticism that such warnings preserve the status quo, strengthening tech giants' dominance. The piece also highlights AI's potential to decrease societal and technical debt by making software production cheaper, simpler, and resulting in far more innovation. It provides examples of cost-effective open-source models that perform well and emphasizes the rapid pace of AI innovation. Last, the article emphasises the need for adaptive legislation to match the pace of AI innovation, empowering suitable government entities for oversight, defining appropriate scopes for legislation and regulation, addressing ethical issues and biases in AI, and promoting public engagement in AI regulatory decisions.

Read More
Thursday, June 1, 2023
Japan revises copyright laws for AI

Japan has made its ruling on the situation between Content creators and Businesses. Japanese companies that use AI have the freedom to use content for training purposes without the burden of copyright laws. This news about the copyright laws in Japan reported over at Technomancers is seen as Businesses: 1 / Content Creators: 0 The […]

Read More
crossmenuarrow-down