Can you blame Henry Ford for rock music?

This was the question on wednesday afternoon, when 4 ranking participants in ICANN were speaking and roundtabling at university of Tampere.

Can you blame the Internet for all teh bad things it allows to exist?

As it seems, you sure can take credit for all the good things the world wide web, the web 2.0 and global access to unbelievable sources information are doing. But when it comes to solving problems...well not much will to participate in this.

Yrjö Länsipuro had a good point that we should keep in mind what we speak about when we speak about governing. It is not just about goverments, stabile institutions of power, but power itself to steer the development.

The Internet, and www, and web 2.0, is a technology. It does not represent any danger or treath to anyone by itself. Technology just allows something to exist. It is truly understandable that people in ICANN are fond of their realm. Those are the people who are running this technology.

The internet revolution could be compared to printing press, steam engine and industrialization. There are more analogies and comparisons in our verbal toolbox than we should have.

In wednesday’s roundtable people of ICANN did position themselves as inventors and defenders of a technology: they were seemingly the Johannes Gutenberg, James Watt and Henry Ford of today.

Of course it is important to confess the fact Wolfgang Kleinwächter brought up: the Internet does not produce child porn or nazi propaganda (both examples brought up by ICANNers btw.). People do produce those unwelcome forms of information. And another analogy by NSN representative Jonne Soininen: the buildings of a city does not create crime and violence. City dwellers do create those unwelcome forms of communication.

But even after knowing and confessing this fact I cannot see why the architects and infra builders should not contribute to removing these evil problems their technology does not create but allows to exist. There is no dialogue when approaching problems of ubiquitous status of electronic networks in our society is welcomed by telling that the Internet should not be filtered in order to remove child porn. Yes it should not be, but what about the problem with ubiquitous status of the electronic networks our society makes us to use!

In wednesday’s round-table a member of audience asked who has power to act if Facebook does something wrong with their galactic database of private user information. Answer was: Don’t be on Facebook, don’t accept the terms of service, they are a company providing service you have every right not to subscribe.  

And another answer was by Kleinwächter to cite Mark Zuckenberg as he once responded to one case of accused privacy violation that ”we should see privacy differently than in the past”.

Those are not real answers to this problem. The problem is that there is no (at least in the minds of ICANN) anyone that could defend this poor Finnish person against the multi-national corporation invading his/her privacy. That individual stands equal to multi-million business in front of God and the court of law in Texas.

My opinion is that we really have to see the Internet revolution (started only 20 years ago) analog to industrialization. It is not the production lines that are causing the problems. It’s the people gathering from far rural areas to constantly growing cities, having a hope to work by those production lines and trying to learn to live again in different kind of social and economical enviroment. We still have huge problems with urbanization that has been going on for 200 years!

So why should these engineers that tweak the factories and product lines be held accountable for the impact their machine has in society? My answer is that they should not be. But when they start and run institutions like ICANN and Internet Governance Forum that promote themselves as the best (and in many ways the only) way to govern the Internet (as opposed to goverment- and UN-based ITU, representated as Darth Wader (Länsipuro) and Dr. Evil (Soininen)), they should at least try to address these problems.

Henry Ford isn’t to blame for rock music. But his factories turned in to cities and those cities were filled with people and those people needed something to do when not working for mr. Ford and they started to play rock music.

Sure mr. Ford will be glad to take credit for Elvis, Beatles and U2. But is he as willing to address the problems that arise from national socialist black metal?

This post is part of my lection diary to course International Communication and Globalization in university of Tampere. http://www.uta.fi/laitokset/tiedotus/opiskelu/kurssimateriaalit/mejos7_klk10.html

Kleinwächter: Kiinalaiset rakentavat omaa nettiä

Istumme tämän ja huomisen päivän professori Kleinwächterin seminaarissa ja aiheena on Global Internet Governance. Mies tulee suoraan pääkallopaikalta, sillä hän on sattumoisin ICANN-organisaation nimitysvaliokunnan puheenjohtaja. Siis valiokunnan, joka nimittää kaikki ICANN:n johtajat, jotka istuvat hallituksessa. Kleinwächterin viesti Kiinan kehityksestä oli hiukan pelottava. Kiina on rakentamassa omaa, kiinankielistä nimipalvelujärjestelmäänsä ja käytönnässä omaa, suljettua verkkoaan Internetin sisään. Sieltä voidaan sitten heittää ulos kaikki ulkomaiset toimijat, joiden sisältö ei läpäise sensuuria.
 
T:Mari

Posted by Mari Flink 

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Which newspaper represents us on Newseum?

Friend (thanks Matti!) from overseas has interesting link on his wall: Newseum. This site gathers every night hundreds of front pages all over the world. On tuesday there was 826 pages from 80 countries. Yes! There is one spot over Helsinki as a sign of front page. Nice surprise: it is Iltalehti. Is it tomorrow too? Must go and see.

http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/flash/default.asp

Posted by Jaana Kerola 

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The clear-cutting briefed Alma's news

Accurate passer-by knew Alma Media´s big news already couple of months ago. The clear-cutting close to the current printing house revealed plans to build new one to the neighbouring site.

Alma Media's investment project to modernise its printing facility in Tampere is moving forward, told listed company in release tuesday. The company has evaluated several alternative locations and decided to negotiate a land lease with the City of Tampere. The property is located next to the existing printing facility in the Sarankulma district of Tampere. The lease will be on the agenda of the City Board Tuesday, April 6, 2010. Alma Media will invest a maximum of EUR 50 million in the project.

http://www.almamedia.fi/release?release=383640

Posted by Jaana Kerola 

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Popular Science+ & Mag+ Platform

Bonnier´s Popular Science+ is the First Magazine Published on Mag+ Platform. Read and see more:
http://www.bonnier.com/en/content/popular-science-first-magazine-published-ma...

Posted by Jaana Kerola 

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First news apps for iPad draw mixed reviews

Very few people have actually touched an iPad, much less tested the already thousands of apps dedicated to the new tablet. But, based on screen shots and some limited demos, early reviews of the major media apps are starting to come in. And "magical" they are not. Mathew Ingram at GigaOm leads off the charge, saying some of the demos, including Wired, looked promising but overall "I have to say that the initial prototypes I'm seeing are, well ... underwhelming." Ingram worries media organizations may be repeating old mistakes. "Part of the problem with mainstream media Web sites has always been that they replicate the same user interface metaphors that appear in the printed versions of their products."

Deskin tutkimus: Suomen bloggaajat ovat aikuisia naisia

150 blogia eivät tietenkään tarkoita kaikkia blogeja. Itse asiassa se on todella pieni määrä, mutta kertoo jotain nettiisyntyneestä bloggaajakulttuurista, jossa ihminen brändää itsensä blogiinsa. Onko tässä toimittajuuden tulevaisuus, kuten jo pitkään olemme uumoilleet?

Deski itse kirjoittaa tutkimuksestaan:
"Viestintätoimisto Deski halusi kartoittaa, mitä bloggaajat ajattelevat heihin kohdistu-
vasta viestinnästä ja yhteydenotoista. Kyselyyn kerättiin 150 suomalaista blogia, joiden
voidaan olettaa olevan yrityksille ja yhteisöille merkityksellisiä. Valinnassa käytettiin sub-
jektiivista harkintaa. Ensimmäinen ehto valinnalle oli se, että blogissa yhteystietojen, eli
sähköpostin tuli olla avoimesti esillä. Toinen ehto oli blogin asiallisuus. Kyselyyn valittiin
blogeja, jotka ovat olleet käynnissä jo vähintään useita kuukausia. Lisäksi lähtökohta
oli se, että blogia päivitettiin säännöllisesti sekä kirjoitukset saivat myös kommentteja
eli blogilla on vakiintunut lukijakunta. Kyselystä rajattiin pois julkkisblogit sekä yritysten
ylläpitämät blogit. Kysely toteutettiin helmikuussa 2010. Vastausprosentti oli lähes 60. "

Click here to download:
Tutkimus_blogit_ja_viestinta_20101.pdf (1.46 MB)
(download)

YLE

In the end of 2009 YLE had 3307 permanent employees. This is 64 more than previous year. What a nice gift to the new CEO.
The giant was before on a diet, and succeeded quite well. 2008 YLE had 3 243 employees. Since 2000 the number of permanent employees has declined by a total of 738 (-21%).

Posted by Jaana Kerola 

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Report: Twitter is the Most Popular Social Sharing Option

Media_httpwwwsocialti_vklbt

Tunnetuimmat bloggaajat uskovat Twitteriin, tavikset jakavat kiinnostavimmat linkkinsä Facebookissa ja - yllätys yllätys - sähköpostilla. Eri tutkimuksenomaiset selvitykset eivät kuitenkaan pääse kiinni esimerkiksi siihen, kuinka paljon netinkäyttäjät vinkkaavat sisällöistä toisilleen esim. pikaviestimissä perinteisillä copy-paste-menetelmillä.

Tiedämme, että nettinäkyvyyden kannalta oleellisinta on saada suosituksia muilta käyttäjiltä ja netin mielipidevaikuttajilta. Kommentit tuovat kommentteja tuovat kommentteja tuovat lukijoita. Tämä pätee niin journalismissa kuin blogosväärissä.

Jakamisen tärkeydestä esimerkkinä toinen verkkoprojektini Kiilablogi.net, jonka 200 viikkokävijästä 3 % tulee Blogilistalta ja 7 % Facebookin kautta, verrattuna > 1 % erilaisten syötteenlukijoiden käyttäjiin.

Pääsiäisen keskustelun voisikin aloittaa sillä, miten sinun julkaisusi käyttää hyödykseen suositteluja ja jakamisen työkaluja. Miten asiakas näkyy mediasi verkkostrategiassa?

Report: Corporate Fan Pages Increase Purchase Intent More Than Banners And Widgets

Media_httpwwwsocialti_njpbk

Tässä syy, miksi yrityksen kannattaa olla mukana sosiaalisessa mediassa tosissaan.