Why does CNN not get it?

Why is this poll on CNN.com's home page?

1. I don't have a pet
2. I don't want to own a pet
3. There are plenty of other more important things for CNN to cover than pets
4. Argg!

Come on people... please. How hard is it to learn my interests and serve up relevant content (I don't even dare asking for APML support). Even without tracking user interests, I can almost guarantee you that people visiting CNN.com do not care about Dog food. Not on the front page!

An even broader question - do they not watch Jon Stewart? Do they not get it? The world is begging for real questions and real answers to real problems. How hard is it to stick to real news in this day and age. Surely they can leave Pet food to the Lifestyle channel?

Why do they waste our time with O.J Simpson? Ratings? Imagine the ratings they would get if they actually picked a fight with Washington - if they actually spelled out the truth of things for everyone to hear and see.

This is why Media 2.0 will win. We can use tools to find the real content and skip the garbage.

Showing pets love... buh.

The Me Meme

Brian Caldwell over on EponymousX has written a fantastic and poetic post about the Me Meme.

He writes:

Our own personal lifestreams, or "public timeline's" if you prefer, are slightly more mundane that the one from Final Fantasy, however it can still be pondered in an analogous manner. Our lifestream threads together everything that we are. Where we go, what we say, who we interact with, how we express ourselves, concepts inside artwork that we create, symbolism that we identify. All can be considered "us" or "me" in some, hopefully non-banal, way.

We say "me" a lot in our lifestreams. Not always directly. Indirectly also. Off the top of our heads. Well thought out over hours of writing and editing. At the snap of the shutter on our iPhone. While visiting at parties and gatherings. By connecting/friending/following through social nets. Generating our APML wake and bow waves through the public timestream. We are the social seed for our downstream online and offline, everyone has a built-in personal wetware network and many people let this stream filter back online, forming a personal lifestream wake.

It's a great read full of all-too-familiar names and experiences. It reminds me of the little rant we posted at AreYouPayingAttention.com.

He also makes an interesting point. If the question of 'What do you do' becomes redundant at conferences, maybe we can move on to deeper conversations more quickly when we meet?

I know that I regularly talk with people I have never met. I trust them as much as people I have known in person for years. They are my advisors, my confidants, my partners and my friends.

The social consciousness is humming now. Can you feel it? Our Lifestreams and APML files are bursting at the seams. The best is yet to come. As our reach and reflection grows, maybe so too will our influence and insight into world affairs - both mundane and monumental.

Yes I love alliteration.

Follow up: Web 2.0 creating world peace

I have posted before musing if Blogging could create world peace. Another weekend rolls around and am prompted to ask a similar question. Can Web 2.0 create world peace?

Check out WikiLeaks (referred to me by Cass!).

From the homepage:

Wikileaks is developing an uncensorable Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis. Our primary interests are oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we also expect to be of assistance to those in the west who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their own governments and corporations. We aim for maximum political impact; this means our interface is identical to Wikipedia and usable by non-technical people. We have received over 1.2 million documents so far from dissident communities and anonymous sources

We believe that transparency in government activities leads to reduced corruption, better government and stronger democracies. Many governments would benefit from increased scrutiny by the world community, as well as their own people. We believe this scrutiny requires information. Historically that information has been costly - in terms of human life and human rights. Wikileaks will facilitate safety in the ethical leaking movement.

Seems like they can't wait for Web 2.0 platforms to create organic and measured transparency in government institutions - they are going to force it by providing an anonymous platform.

We often say that new forms of media lower the barrier to entry for participants to have a voice and therefore strengthens democracy. And it's clear that this latest iteration of our media platforms is the most democratic of all. So does democracy include complete transparency?

This is a philosophical question as much as a logistical one. There have been books written about total transparency - and what such a world would look like. Some paint a very rosy picture.

Interesting Concept. I can't decide if it will result in anarchy or the end of corruption (or the beginning of new ways to hide corruption!).

What do you think?

Can blogging create World Peace?

I was chatting to an old (as in long term - I would never call her old) friend of mine today and we got to talking about Politics and Justice and all those light weight things (as you do). We are both very interested in those topics.

We got to talking about how the latest wave of social software might help improve the world. I almost alluded to it in a recent post about Web 3.0 (*cringe*).

We came up with this interesting line of thought (if you look closely you could imagine a small green Muppet saying the words).

War is based on fear, fear is based on ignorance, ignorance is based on a lack of information, lack of information is based on bad/biased editorializing and/or audience apathy

So by that logic – perhaps if we can further empower the mainstream to share their unedited stories it might actually broaden our understanding and acceptance of each other - even those scary people over there (that place that is different from ours). Perhaps if we are able to connect in new and powerful ways governments will be forced to listen to the will of their people in a way never before experienced. Perhaps transparency in government will improve.

If this were to occur to a sufficient scale, would ignorance not begin to dissipate and interconnectedness grow? Would fear begin to give way to understanding of commonalities. Would wars and injustice based on fear become extinct?

Apathy may still be a problem – anyone got any suggestions?

It is probably far too idealistic and naive - Maybe wars are not based on fear but rather on energy crisis’s - I just thought that it was a fun piece musing late on a Saturday night.