An intimate conversation in the global village
By - January 25, 2005
Do the Internet-based voice and multimedia communications technologies developed in the Greater Silicon Valley really bring us closer together? One wired world guru argues yes and tells a beautiful story that illustrates how.
Reports John Perry Barlow, in an article worth reading in full, about his experience in becoming friends over the internet with a stranger because he could hear her voice:
The bottom line is this: they reached at random out into the Datacloud and found a real friend. And I feel like I have been graced with a real friend in both of them. Given the fact that I've been getting interesting messages from distant strangers since 1985, why do I think the big deal? Why is this different? Because these strangers have voices. There's a lot more emotional bandwidth in the human voice. I'm always surprised by the Meatspace version of someone I've only encountered in ASCII. I'm rarely surprised by someone I've only met on the phone. But one doesn't get random phone calls from Viet Nam or China, or at least one never could before. Skype changes all that. Now anybody can talk to anybody, anywhere. At zero cost. This changes everything. When we can talk, really talk, to one another, we can connect at the heart.
Barlow tells a heart-warming techno-tale that shows how Internet telephone technology can make the global village a more intimate place.
More communication is generally a good thing, but I still have my doubts. Even in a best-case scenario as Barlow describes, won't we still wind up in front of our computer screens, talking into the aether, isolated?
Links:
The Intimate Planet, BarlowFriendz, 24 January 2005
What's the story? Doug Millison also edits OnlineJournalist.org, "on a need-to-know basis"
By - January 25, 2005 | Permalink
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Comments
MILES on Friday Watch: All Dogs Go To Heaven . . .
I'd be pleased if my dog started to crap outside, let alone gets into heaven.
The fact that we can easily call into question whether or not dogs go to heaven only confirms that I can just as easily question god/heaven in its entirety.
kiwifella on Friday Watch: All Dogs Go To Heaven . . .
The scriptures clearly state that to be in Heaven we must be without Spot
does this settle it ??
gaylord on Friday Watch: All Dogs Go To Heaven . . .
riiiiiiight....
still funny, regardless of it's fakeness
jo on Die! Press release! Die! Die! Die!
I was side tracked into this while I was doing a research about social media release with busby seo test site, and to tell you honestly, it was a bit unsettling for a reasonably idealistic (or much better said as “traditional”) person like “me”.
I wasn’t sure anymore how to give justice and support to my learned knowledge base on my researches that press release is “plainly” designed to be sent to journalists in order to ENCOURAGE them t
Alicia V. Nieva-Woodgate on Yahoo CEO Search: Here's My Pick . . .
That's a great choice!
Tom Foremski on Microsoft Tries Blogger Outreach But How Serious Is It?
Geva: You are probably right :-)
Andrew: Having some of the comms team present as observers is perfectly OK. If they were moderating the discussion that would be different.
It is going to be difficult for the MSFT executives to continue the "conversation." After all, they don't even have time to read our blogs or leave comments! How are they going to continue with these relationships?
Also, some of the bloggers don't even write about the enterprise space, I'm puzzled why t
Andrew Kisslo on Microsoft Tries Blogger Outreach But How Serious Is It?
Tom -
Thanks again for joining us on Monday. I wanted to weigh in a bit since I sponsored the event. Geva is right with his first post that our intent was direct conversation with the group. We felt it would show our eagerness to have the most open dialogue possible.
It's great feedback for us if you feel lack of PR firms in the room inadvertently sends the signal that it was somehow half-hearted. The spirit of the gathering was quite the opposite. We tried to balance feedback
Bluescatman on Friday Watch: All Dogs Go To Heaven . . .
Everyone knows that all dogs go to "Doggie Heaven", unless of course you believe as some native Americans do, that when a person dies, he goes to the "happy hunting ground". Hmmm, I wonder if dogs are hunted there. Then again, if we believe certain "Eastern" religions, then we all were probably a dog (or other animal) in another life. On the other hand there's always Roy Rogers' horse !!!
Geva Perry on Microsoft Tries Blogger Outreach But How Serious Is It?
Tom -- Well, maybe they don't trust their own PR people...
Geva
Jesus Rocks on Friday Watch: All Dogs Go To Heaven . . .
DUH! Does no one read the bible any more? Have we forgotten that God made creatures (dogs, cats, giraffes, lions and tigers and bears - oh my - ) BEFORE He created man and woman? This is a God of order and not of the random. In the last book of the bible (Revelation) it speaks of the lion lying with the lamb - to mean that there will be peace restored in creation. I take it that there will be dogs and cats,lambs, lions, tigers and bears in heaven. Oh my.
Jack on Friday Watch: All Dogs Go To Heaven . . .
God and heaven don't exist. It is an irrational belief to believe there is a space god who is all loving but still allows for suffering and sends his only son which is actually also him to earth to suffer for maybe 18 hours (from the time he was supposedly in the garden, sweating blood) when real humans today suffer for much longer periods of time in much more agonizing ways, to somehow save us from our guilt for a sin we didn't even commit. To eventually go to some magical paradise where no
kenekaplan on Microsoft Tries Blogger Outreach But How Serious Is It?
Tom.
Many of us have been benefiting for years from your work here on SiliconValleyWatcher and from your ability to be in so many places each week, each day! That's why we asked you to join the Intel Insider program.
Prior to starting our Insider program, several from our communications team worked with you when you were at FT and believed in your bold step into the blogospher. That team sponsored your new efforts, and you helped us try out new things like: having our tin
DaveBave on Friday Watch: All Dogs Go To Heaven . . .
Well, I guess it depends on what Dogma you follow! HAha! But seriously, all dogs do go to heaven. Except for dogs that have urinated on my leather jacket. That one is definitely not gonna make it.
ANA MARIA LLOPIS on Nobel Peace Prize Winner Mohammad Yunus Challenge to Silicon Valley and beyond: Let's Put Poverty Into A Museum
Ana Maria to Tom
I had the privilege of listening to him last July at the Del Pino's Foundation in Madrid, and it transformed my life.
I suggested him the stock market of social enterprises and he did not say he already had thought about it, and that this concept was in his book, he was a gentleman. I bought his book after the conference and read it during the summer. After listening to his words, I wanted to change the world in a different way with the democratization of ideas,
Tom Foremski on Microsoft Tries Blogger Outreach But How Serious Is It?
Geva: I think it was a mistake not to have their comms team present. They can still interact with bloggers in a natural way. There is a lot the comms teams could have learnt from the event without interfering in the process.
Nancy on Friday Watch: All Dogs Go To Heaven . . .
Dogs have souls, because they have breath-life. Gen 2:7...."And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man become a living soul." Anything that breaths has a soullife. However, animals do not have spirit, the direct connection between God and Humans. It is the failure of our Spiritual "leaders" to properly interpret the Bible that leads to this ignorance of God's Word. I will see my dogs and cats in Heaven.
Geva Perry on Microsoft Tries Blogger Outreach But How Serious Is It?
Tom -- At some point one of the Microsoft guys said that they intentionally didn't have any AR/PR people actively participate. They wanted the product and business line people to interact directly and authentically with the bloggers. I think that actually shows they were more serious about it than just making it a "marketing program".
Regards,
Geva
Lollie Dot Com on Friday Watch: All Dogs Go To Heaven . . .
No matter what any bible, church, agnostic or atheist says - facts are facts. Any heaven without dogs is missing one of earth's greatest joys. Or in other words, any heaven without dogs is kind of craptacular. So I guess this means no cats, squirrels, butterflies, no giraffes, no lions so friendly they lie down with lambs.
Everyone who wants to spend eternity in crapworld raise their hands.... Oh look, no one. Duh. Either build a better heaven or I don't wanna go.
This is ex
Matt on Friday Watch: All Dogs Go To Heaven . . .
An atheist and a believer are like 2 people searching in a pitch black room for a black cat that isn't there, yet they both claim they've found it! BTW; Dogs rock!!!
Charlie Fong on The Size of Derivatives Bubble = $190K Per Person on Planet
1. If one quadrillion takes 32 million years to count - stop counting it. The solution is not in figuring how big it is and how it got there. Simple. How did George W. Bush get people to believe in WMD? - Lies based on fear. How did we get to one Qn of derivatives ? - Lies based on greed.
2. Look at it this way. Derivatives are like the foilage on a tree. One giant Oak produces millions of leaves. When these leaves get diseased, the disease will eventually find its way to the roots a