Google is truly a force that the majority of web users encounter in one form or another on a daily basis. It’s dominance in the marketplace and constant push to innovate its technologies has been a comfort in many ways for many years.

Lately, however, I can’t help but escape this hollowing feeling that the giant has become too enamored with itself and engulfed us in the process. Over the last couple of years, and especially in the last few months, Google has added a number of tools to its arsenal, purportedly because we, the users, needed/asked for them. What tools am I talking about? Consider:

• Name Search - This is really not a tool so much as a consequence of their database. Enter your name, or the name of anyone that you want to investigate, and a quick and dirty list of online breadcrumbs is at your fingertips.

• Phonebook Search - This service allows anyone to enter in a combination of name, phone number, or address and get back the Street Address and Phone Number associated (#)

• Credit Card Number / Social Security Search - The newest member of the gang is actually a hack, but a serious one. By searching for credit card numbers or social security numbers, Google will show you the sites stupid enough to list that information. (#)

So what’s the big deal, you might be asking. These things have been around for some time. I think the evil side of things is two-fold. On one front we have a collapse of our anonymity/privacy. As I mentioned before (see “The Many Faces of Our Digital Identity”), I’ve observed several different forms of Digital Identity. One method for examining those different identities is to consider the role of anonymity in them. For example, our Public Identities are the least secure in our minds as it is the information we announce to the world. On the other hand, our Protected Identities are guarded secrets that we selectively reveal. I made mention of Residual Identity as well. This was the Google-effect at work. The problem with the hooks Google provides is that it blurs the lines between our identities and personal spaces.

The other evil front has yet to surface, but lets play conspiracy theorist just once. The launch of services like Orkut which serve to map and model our relationships and interests coupled with localized searching and localized advertising (a la GMail) provides some interesting opportunities for bad things to happen. Realistically, I don’t think Google would intentionally do this, but it doesn’t mean that “bad things” can’t happen. Already, the tools are in place for someone to re-assemble a great deal of information on anyone or any group of people.

Unfortunately for all of us, there’s not much that can be done just yet. When GMail was announced we say all kinds of legal action spur out of it from privacy advocates and lawmakers. For now, we can only rely on Google’s good senses and wait for the IPO to be over so this hiding-behind-the-quiet-period non-sense ends.

Amy Jo Kim mentions a new technology that is designed to ease the “pain” of dealing with those, now tiny, pictures the new breed of camera phones are snapping around the world.

For camera phone owners, one of the greatest hassles of the process is actually getting the picture off of the phone once a picture has been taken. There are a few reasons that moving pictures is important (at least for now):

• Contagion - For the most part, people are snapping pictures “in the now” and want to spread that moment to as wide an audience as possible (usually the members of the clan that aren’t physically participating).

• Storage - Currently, the small devices are not equipped with enough memory. This makes it impossible to store a large amount of photos on the device at any one time. Couple this with the photos already attached to contacts in the address book and the available space is even smaller.

To further aggravate matters, there are a couple of strong forces that are working to prevent users from actually getting their photos off:

• Interface Design - As with most electronic devices, there are a number of features that are present, but often not used. With camera phones, usually a button is dedicated to the camera. However, there are still issues in terms of how to manipulate that image, how to annotate it, etc. that prevent many users from having the picture the way they want it.

• Infrastructure Design - Making phone calls is a relatively painless process on your average camera phone. Sending pictures is a different story. In many respects, it requires a bit of knowledge outside of the device to tell how to send a picture (e-mail vs. MMS, for example) . In addition, there’s a potential looming question if the image ever made it to its destination.

  In Europe, where SMS is far more entrenched, these may be “easier” tasks. We’re only barely getting used to it here in the States now.

Enter Cognima. They’ve developed a new technology that will allow for the automatic publishing of photo content to a central server. The process happens behind the scenes and is, in essence, painless. According to a study they conducted, it works:

Cognima’s study showed that normal camera phone users end up not being particularly active MMS users. Only 18% of the regular MMS users they followed kept on taking and sending pictures on a regular basis two weeks after the trial began. However, 70% of customers using Cognima were still happily snapping photos.

Source: TheFeature, “Taking The Upload Out Of The Camera Phone Process”

Since I’ve just posted on the potential of fostering social networks in the air travel industry, it only seems appropriate to point to these two articles that show both the good and the bad sides.

On the good side, we have a recent article highlighted by the Online Dating News blog. As the article notes:

DALLAS - The loving looks begin outside the gate, jump to the jetbridge and snuggle themselves into coach seats in the Southwest Airlines courtship ritual.

Low-fare carrier Southwest likes to say it is the airline built on love, and thanks to an open seating policy where customers are free to chose their seats, many a romance has taken off with the purchase of an inexpensive ticket.

Over the years, the Dallas-based airline which calls the city’s Love Field its home has received thousands of letters and scores of wedding invitations addressed to top executives from couples who met on one of the airline’s flights.

Source: Houston Chronicle, “Airline’s open seating breeds love connections”

This is similar to the experience I had when travelling from London to Amsterdam and from Nice to London using EasyJet. They use the same first-come, first-served model. Once you’ve checked in, you get to board earlier or later. There must be any number of strategies to “trap” or “barricade” yourself into a situation that is favorable to your desires. Quite interesting.

On the bad end of the spectrum, we have an example of how the often alcohol-laden nature of travel can act up. In this case, we’re seeing a reversal of the Air Rage problem.

MOSCOW, Russia (AP) — Drunken passengers often give air crews trouble, but Russia’s leading airline on Tuesday reported an “unprecedented” reversal: A passenger was assaulted by intoxicated flight attendants.

Two crew members on a domestic Aeroflot flight beat up a passenger who had complained that the flight attendants were drunk, airline spokeswoman Irina Dannenberg said.

[…]

Seeing that the crew were intoxicated and were not fulfilling their duties, Chernopup asked to be served by a sober and competent flight attendant, Dannenberg said. He was then beaten up by crew members.

Source: CNN.com, “Reverse air rage on Russia flight”

So the networks are there, and vibrant, but not organized. I still think we need this.

I’ve spent far too much time waiting for planes, flying on planes, exiting planes, and what not. Tomorrow, I am back on the road again for a couple of days in San Francisco to catch BlogOn. The entire time, I’ve been thinking one thing: Where’s the Network?

Let me explain the backdrop a bit. Air travel brings millions of people into close proximity on a daily basis. From the long lines to the waiting lounges and onto the planes themselves, people are placed into contact with many people that have never met before. For many, this entire process spans any number of hours, and even into extreme cases, days. It’s always amazed me that there isn’t more of an effort to get people to interact.

So where are the opportunities, if any? I think there are a few contexts that are worth considering:

• Seating - Currently, we have very little control over where we are sitting. The basic class system of airline seating tends to separate in terms of wealth but fails to really deal with anything else. There’s no “Kid’s” section, for example.

  What would be quite interesting, however, is the ability for people to aggregate based on a series of personal or professional preferences. Imagine indicating that you are interested in skiing, hiking, and rollerblading. Based on those preferences, seating is organically aggregated.

  There are, naturally, lots of logistical and security issues with this approach. Despite all that, it seems like the trip would be so much more enjoyable being surrounded by people that I knew shared my interests.

• Waiting Lounge - The Waiting Lounge is always packed with tons of people that are just twiddling their thumbs trying to kill time. For the more daring, they will branch out and start conversation. In past experiences, I’ve found most people are receptive to a little conversation and enjoy passing the time this way.

• In-flight Experience - Riding for 8 hours in a cramped environment is ripe with issues, least of which are the social ones. But once you’re past the physical obstacles, it’s hard to pass the time if you can’t sleep. I’ve flown a number of different airlines over the last few years and only recently has the experience improved. Technology is to thank. Here are just two of the great things I have seen:

  • Song Pop Quizzes - In February I was flying out to Las Vegas to attend a conference and celebrate my birthday. On that flight, we got to experience the new in-seat entertainment system Song was outfitting their planes with.

    We found an extremely interesting game running. The game allowed the passengers to answer a variety of Pop quizzes. There was a running timer and the scoring was based on choosing the right answer in the fastest time possible. Interestingly enough, the game allowed passengers to select a member name, but it also identified their seat location.

    This added an entirely new dimension to the flight. On one level, people were changing their names to reflect their personality, or the personality of the group they were with (my buddies and I were R2, D2, and C3PO — our nicknames for each other. In addition, we also knew how we were doing and found ourselves peering around to see who was winning or losing as the game progressed.

  • Virgin Atlantic Text Messaging - I’ve come to be a real fan of the Virgin Atlantic Airline. I took them to and from England for my recent EuroTrip. The experience to London was good enough, but apparently, on the way back I was on one of the “upgraded” planes. This plane featured a far more interactive in-flight entertainment system (powered by Linux no less).

    What interested me most was the Text Messaging abilities. The system allowed members to send SMS messages to their buddies on the ground. More importantly, though I didn’t experiment with it, a passenger could message another passenger on the plane. This was ideally intended for the singles that spy someone of interest in the Waiting Lounge or while on the way to the rest room. It’s quite ingenious.

Is an emerging Third Space our travel space? If these are any indicators it seems like we should expect more changes along these lines than less.

What happens when our identites collide? If one is revealed and another is compromised?

Peter’s run into some complaints on his personal blog
http://worcester.typepad.com/pc4media/2004/07/i_hosted_the_ca.html

David St Lawrence warns of the peril
http://ripples.typepad.com/ripples/2004/06/balancing_micro.html

Stowe raised a good point, that I hadn’t really delved into the many ways in which we maintain multiple personalities online.

I thought it would make sense to outline some of the many ways that we use different technologies to accomplish this.

E-mail Aliases
Almost everyone uses different addresses for work and home. Many will also make use of separate addresses for different special interest groups. This can be just as easily used to perpetuate

IM Handles
Similar to e-mail, there are lots of people that have different IM handles, or a multitude of IM services, at their disposal to interact with the different audiences they entertain/engage.

Blogs
Though there are many, many cases where individuals start their own blog and throw everything, including the kitchen sink, into the body, there are also many different subjects that are taboo. With the relative ease of creating entirely new blogs, many have turned to spawning new “journals” to document the various aspects of their personality.

Site Registrations
Many of us will make use of different handles and member names at different sites to provide separate “namespaces” for our activity.

I’m currently in Gatwick with Stowe, waiting for our plane to Amsterdam. Yesterday was a great success at the London Symposium on Social Tools (STES).

Continuing with my look into Digital Identity and preparing for the iDate Conference in two days, here’s some interesting news from True.com. The notion of Projected versus Public Identity creates uneasiness and risk for many users on online tools. Often , individuals are left wondering if the individual they are reading about, chatting with, or otherwise engaging is who they say they are, or real at all.

The Online Dating world has been at grips for some time with these identity issues and has come up with a wide array of social and legal barriers that lower the opportunity costs of identity fraud. In the latest effort, from newly minted True.com, we’re seeing a concerted legal effort to introduce background checks into the process.

True today announced that it is launching a state-by-state campaign in support of legislation requiring online dating services to conduct criminal background checks or to prominently disclose to its members if an online dating service chooses not to provide this safety-enhancing service. Already garnering strong support in the company’s home State of Texas, Senator John Carona and State Representative Will Hartnett have joined True’s safety movement as sponsors of the legislation.

Source: Online Dating News, “True.com Launches Background Check Legislation” via True Press Release

Looking back, historically, True is in fact NOT the only service that uses background checks, there have been many before. These issues certainly will come to dominate many discussions about Online Dating. Looking forward, as “profiles” become more and more a part of our connected lives and identities fly from the hip, we can only expect that there will be very serious social concerns stemming from the exchange and (mis)use of these identities.

Very interesting application of Bluetooth technology to provide a blog-based encounter log.

http://www.bluemonger.com/download via Engadget

Another use of RFID to track children
http://www.engadget.com/entry/1387385527438251/

MoSoSo
http://socialsoftware.weblogsinc.com/entry/1400731295238374/

I received a comment yesterday from Razvan Dragomirescu, CTO of Simedia, producers of Pocketster/Pocketster Pro. It seems the team there has been quite busy upgrading their system and launching the new Professional version, while also managing to accommodate user demand/requests.

For the most part, the main addition to Pocketster Basic is the ability to hook into your existing WiFi networks with the new Infrastructure-Mode support. The really exciting things are seen in Pocketster Pro, which will set you back just under 15 Euros. Here’s a summary of what’s included:

Pocketster Pro

• All the features of Pocketster Basic
• User-defined document root for file sharing
• iPod Module

That last item really deserves a lot more attention. From what I understand about it, you can essentially chain your iPod off of your Pocket PC in such a manner that you can stream music right off of the little white wonder. This is really something fundamentally different than what Apple had in mind ;).

iTunes 4.6 and higher supported shared libraries, which essentially allowed someone to browse your music collection and stream it to their machine. Of course, there were no file transfers occurring. In this scenario, though, the files can be streamed or physically transferred. Naturally, any DRM that existed beforehand still remains in place, but the millions of “liberated” tunes are now even more free to roam.

The main limitation I see in this arrangement is the combination. I know that the Pocket PC is making great strides and has matched the Palm in market share. Still, that makes me wonder how many people are PocketPC and iPod users. The better question, then, really is how long before these smart fellows figure out how to “mount” other hardware that’s dominant in the landscape, say a Creative MP3 player or even a Sony MiniDisc.

The notion of a personal server may be closer than it seems. I’m looking forward to see where Pocketster evolves to next. For the original comments, check here.

Since the beginning of this blog, I’ve often tackled the issue of Digital Identity. In short, I’ve most often griped about the methods in which various systems and services have not only requested it, but also what they ask for.

As a database programmer, I’ve tried to offer some keen insight into why these services are almost forced to marginilize our identity, not to mention our humanity, to accomplish their goals. Without boiling us down to empircal data that can ne normalized, categorized, and indexed, searching and archiving are daunting tasks, to say the least.

Yesterday, two interesting nuggets appeared to me that got me thinking about something that I overlooked. First there was an article, then there was an e-mail from David Teten of Online Business Networks with a simple question: “Why don’t you have an About Me page? What prompted that decision?”

There’s a short answer to that question, which I’ll send along to David shortly, however that’s not the answer I am giving here. Instead, I was prompted to consider the changes in our behavior that occur as a result of having these new digital identies. Specifically, I realized that I could see many different identies in action already (Public, Protected, Projected, Disposable, and Residual).

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