/by Heidi Ballinger
Last night my friend Mitch Wagner sent me a link to Google Maps with a picture of his house and his first commend was “Kind of wishing the Google Street View car came by AFTER we had the front yard fixed up”.
Which made me think about this big question “how much do we want to being watched”? – I invited Mitch to a short interview/ discussion in Second Life about this topic.
A picture of Mitch Wagner and Heidi Ballinger (such a cool avatar his has – and it only cost 10 L$) hehe.
Mitch Wagner work with reporting and blogging on social networking, community, Web 2.0, and the Mac. Also leading the drive to develop InformationWeek’s presence on social networking, community, and Web 2.0. He is former reporter for ComputerWorld.
I had the pleasure to meet him at the MetaverseU Conference at Stanford earlier this year.
Mitch Wagner is his name in both RL and SL.
You can follow Mitch’s blog by clicking here.
Are you worried about losing your privacy?
Mitch is not really worried about losing privacy – He claims It’s just the front of his house, and after all visible to anyone who drives by – and for Mitch everything there are visible from public street..
At that point I’m more worried than Mitch are. This is just the beginning, and I fear about the future with new photos or online photos updates 24/7/365. Sick people could follow you on the Internet all the time, and watch where to meet you. And what about the daily walks with unruly morning hair? lol
Mitch: “I expect it will eventually be 24×7 cameras everywhere, accessible from the Internet. As long as they’re not in private places — like a home — or in bathrooms, I don’t have a problem with that.
This was the same with caller ID. It was a huge deal when it came out in the early- mid-90s — the idea that someone will know who you are and know your phone number when you call them!
If something is visible from a public street, why shouldn’t you publish a photo on the Internet?
We also had this controversy about caller ID and, before that, home answering machines?
Now we have Caller ID blocking. Some people block their caller ID. Other people refuse to take calls from people who block Caller ID. Likewise, in the 80s, when answering machines became common, some people started using them to screen calls. Many people considered that rude — other people said, look, doors have peepholes in them don’t they? This is the same thing. A lot of the privacy we now take for granted is historically recent”
This is an interesting thought. Would it be possible just to block users from watching you though the net? How will we manage all the different IP-addresses, or should an IP-address be something personal like your personal identification number?
(oh oh I think I have kept asking the same questions now it’s big words, but I do really fear this) 
“Heidi, I keep coming back to the same point: Everyone can look at the outside of my house RIGHT NOW – in more detail and from different angles than Google publishes. Google is free to photograph my house from the street, but they can’t come onto my property.
I’m more concerned when its big institutions doing the watching and private citizens being watched.”
End of that question (….for a while) …. lol
The attention and footprint online
– the new generation are grown up with this
It’s the human nature to make some footprints in life – and it seems like there is no bottom line for what people will do just to get some attention – especially the younger generation who are grown up with these media. Maybe we think it somehow makes us more “immortal”? And this generation doesn’t have the same concern about being watch online. Maybe a desire for approval?
Mitch: “I’m fascinated by people who put really personal information about themselves on their blogs.
I did a blog post about that myself, discussing a New York Times article about a very exhibitionist blogger.
They have a hunger for fame and a need to get an audience.
But, fame for themselves, not fame for their work like an actor or business entrepreneur or an artist.
I have occasionally written about personal problems on my blog, for the release of talking about them.
I stopped when I started getting feedback — even helpful advice — from strangers.
I was thinking, “Why do I care what you think?
I still do what might appear to be personal blogging — but infact it’s about something I saw, or read, or bought, or an idea. Not about me”
The Google street view article – click here
Society in the future will make its own rules
I think the problem is not the technology — its societal rules for using technology
Well, for example, my whole Flickr stream: Only one picture of me and Julie in there, and its 3 years old.
No other pix of us, or my family and friends.
Thinking of uploading pix of my nephews and nieces, but it’ll be private — family only — when I do.
Something I’ve noticed that’s weird: Young women who frequently update pictures of themselves on Facebook and Flickr. Just photo after photo of themselves in different poses.
Many people in their teens and early 20s grew up with MySpace. They live their lives as if they were celebrities
They’re not famous for millions of people, like Paris Hilton is. Only famous to their circle of a dozen friends or so. But otherwise, the same”
But I still have concerns:
In 5 years people can take my picture on Google Earth and publish them.
Another thought…: those people who is considers “popular” in small circles on the web, are they more “popular” on the web than in real life?
I’m not using Facebook, because I can’t see the meaning of using it (I use LinkedIn, and connect with relevant business partners). And I know many people just add like 20 people every day, just to expand their network. Well I could never do that. I have to know the person a little at least (I’d be embarrassed if someone asked me to get in contact with someone at my list though me, and I couldn’t say anything about them).
Mitch uses Facebook and has a clever thought here:
“Ever see a message from someone on Facebook changing their status from “married” or “in a relationship” to “single”? And you barely know the person?
When that happens I never know what, if anything, to say.
I mean if someone I worked with — even if I barely knew them — said, “I’m getting a divorce,” I’d say, “I’m sorry to hear that.” But do you say anything on Facebook?
A matter of fact, I’ve started limiting my Facebook friends to people I actually know, or at least know by reputation.
A blog post Mitch have wrote about this subject – clik here
Still, I think that’s the great and powerful thing about social networks — it lets you make a personal connection similar out the one you make in face-to-face conversations.
And I include Second Life in the category of social networks, most definitely.
Maybe we think we are more important with more friends we have—–.- for many quantity instead of quality
I think so.
Also, well, it’s a number. And when you have a number associated with you, you automatically want to make that number bigger (for Facebook friends and money).
Tribalism is human and it’s not a bad thing.
If you meet someone who went to the same school as you, you feel a connection.”
Marketing from Goggle Earth viewer
In Second Life we often watch on the MAP, and notice that many Islands has marketing themselves with a logo viewed from the topview.
Maybe this also will infect real life with Goggle Earth? Architect might starting to think ”view from the sky” and not only in front.
But I’m a little behind, Mitch just answered this:
“Oh, sure, I think we can expect that. As a matter of fact, I think it’s been tried already. And people did it for airplanes too.”
Profits from Google…
Actually Mitch did an article a couple of months ago about profits from Google.
He use Google routinely to check out new hotels when traveling on business, to make sure they’re not in scary neighbourhoods.
It has been rumoured that Google will go online with an real virtual world, but Google doesn’t confirm it.
Mitch: “I don’t see how it fits with their business model — “organizing the world’s information” — but that doesn’t mean they won’t do It”.
To look up apartment and houses before visit them
“My Dad left me and my brothers REALLY TINY SHARES of ownership of a Brooklyn apartment building and none of us had ever seen the place before — my Dad inherited it from HIS father.
It was such a minuscule share that it wasn’t worth driving to Brooklyn for hours to check it out.
So I went on Google Street View, punched in the address, and looked at it that way.
It’s also a great way to confirm local meeting locations”.
Safer traffic with paparazzo’s online
Mitch: “at last if they do it electronically they won’t be blocking traffic….
: .. and again we should not be making policy decisions for all of society based on how it might affect a few
So, maybe we in the future can change avatar and look different to hide?
Mitch: “You laugh, but consider how much less expensive and more commonplace plastic surgery has become”.
Cell phones everywhere…
Both Mitch and I have an “oldies” way to handle cell phones. We both like our privacy and don’t talk private stuff in public.
And I sometimes closes my phone for several days, just to be alone and work (I don’t like the idea that people thinks they always can get in contact with me, always and everywhere just because of this technology).
Mitch: “Many people used to consider it to be rude to pick up your cell phone — some still do, but I think we’re arriving at a societal consensus when it’s OK to use the cell and when it’s not.
One of the problems we have in the West, I think, is that we deny people tools because sick people might abuse them.
So EVERYBODY has to get groped by the TSA because of 18 guys who flew planes into buildings seven years ago. To use one of my pet peeves.
TSA = Transportation Security Authority or something like that — the American airport police.
But I still read rants about people talking on cell phoens at the airport, or when walking down a city street, and I say, oh, come on, those are public places.
Not as many rants as 10 years ago when cell phones started getting cheap and ubiquitous in the US, though”.
But Mitch do love to eavesdrop on conversations in neighbouring tables in restaurants
Our own Island in real life
With all my experiences with Islands and terraforming in Second Life, it wouldn’t be a problem to create my own Island in real life (especially not with the new technology to print 3D objects from your computer out in real life)…… I just need a very very very large printer *thinking*
My island with be with objects blocking satellites, and Mitch has promised to be the first resident move in as long he can have a pack of trained Dobermans and order his henchmen to “release the hounds”.
And he has given me my new title at the new island “the Bond villain in the underground lair” Not sure where that came from, giggles
Thank you Mitch for your time, clever words and knowledge. It was a big big pleasure to talk with you about this very interesting question.
Please feel free to join this debate – I’d like to hear what you are thinking!
Have a nice weekend
Good read, thanks!
[...] So this article is one that you should read to get a better perspective on what is really going on and how much this new technology is really affecting our lives and culture today and will surely affect it tremendously in the future… read more Google – Do you mind being watched? (Interview from Second Life with Mitch Wagner) [...]