Dan R Smrt

I Know What You Did Last Summer

Do people understand how hard it is to kill online information today?

In the halcyon days of the dotcom bubble, I was a co-founder of a startup that attempted to commercialize three dimensional visualization technology for digging through relational data.  In the late 90s, our team of world-unwise computer geeks decided to hire a CEO who had taken some interest in our technology, since we lacked adequate understanding of business ourselves.  As you might expect, we wanted to get some background on this gentleman before we did an interview. 

Being nerds and well aware of the power of the growing web, we sat down and did a bit of searching.  One thing we turned up was his performance in a foot race.  You can picture his surprise when we mentioned this to him in the interview.  This was in 1999. 

That was Then

1999 was a time when people had “home pages” from their school or work computer accounts, and when places like “Geocities” were all the rage.  Why, back then people had to write their own HTML, and browsers were fighting over <blink> tags instead of worrying about pixel perfect layouts of the latest alphabet-soup rendering technology.  Social sites hadn’t caught on or didn’t even exist.  People used dialup and grandmothers didn’t write blogs.

In the early days of the World Wide Web, search engines were still rough, Google was just a glimmer of hope, but even then people were tossing information out there for people to see.  Search engine spiders hungrily devoured it all and digested it into little pearls for anyone to sift through.  They began to hook it together, and began to learn its context.  They started analyzing the data, keeping caches of it.   People would copy information they liked, add it to their own pages.  The spiders would find these new pages, and devour them.

This is Now

Lets fast forward the better part of a decade to 2007.  Today, search engines and similar tools provide a wonderfully simple interface between the online information and we plebs of the outside world; elegant in its simplicity.  Say something, and they tell you where to find whatever seems related.  

Open the kimono, and they are the facade of a transcendental quasi-entity;  they are indexes into the collective knowledge and trivia of mankind.  Once a piece of information is added to this matrix, it is very hard to remove it.  These engines are the trunk, roots, and branches of a great virtual Yggdrasil: a “World Tree” whose tendrils touch all the crannies of the World Wide Web.

The power of this system has only grown over the years.  Once the realm of academia, now the advent of social networking sites and tools have resulted in the most picayune details of people’s lives being laid bare.  Some of these sites seek to retain this data in some semblance of pseudo-privacy: a “walled garden”.  The walls of these gardens can keep out the spiders of the search engines, but cannot keep out the users themselves from taking the data with them.

You Know Who Else Likes Britney Spears ?

Recently, a furor of sorts has started on the social networking site “Facebook”.  This site started as a way for college students to identify themselves to each other.  It has grown to include schools of all sorts, then businesses, and now it is open to everyone.  People voluntarily and willingly spin their personal likes, foibles and frustrations into a skein of golden fleece for targeted marketers.  They also, as it happens, put up pictures of their naked arses sticking out of a hedgerow after a good throat wetting down at the local.  These go next to pictures of their weddings and their kids’ new bikes.  Trivial stuff, but something people are obviously willing to share.  To a point.

Facebook has, of this writing, been trying a new marketing partnership program with several online stores and websites.  Now, when you purchase a book on “dealing with AIDS”, or buy “Slap Happy Schoolmarms 8″ from an online video store, this fact is merrily posted to your social profile, for all your friends, relatives, and, oh yes, your employers to see.  It ain’t easy to keep this sort of information out, either. 

A generation of young people are growing up disdaining email, opting instead for all contact to be on one of these social networks.  I will give them some credit for crying “FOUL!” to Facebook’s antics — people are willing to share what is probably too much information already, but they want to be the ones sharing it, not to have to fight to not share it.  Yet, I am not certain at all that people realize, in this decade, the information and the tools to dig into it are so powerful, so prelevant, that before getting a job, no matter if it is CEO or carpark attendant, you are going to be quizzed you about your favourite beer, and if you really do think that the “Calgary Flames SUXXOR” like that online interest group they saw your name in.  Remember, You are your own brand!

Tunnel Vision

What’s that? That’s not you?  But I have this picture of you pouring water down the shirts of two girls in a bar, neither one who looks like that picture over there of your wife.   Oh, that was two years ago, in school was it?  I see…well, this search site equates your writing style and online message forum avatar with that of “studmuffin07″, is that the name you want on your uniform?  No?  Thank Odin for small blessings.    Well, it’s not all bad.  I must congratulate you on running 2:46:30 in the half marathon in 2006.  Oh yes, I know that’s not in your Facebook profile, you don’t think that’s the only way to find out information about you… do you? The Internet’s an elephant, it remembers all! It is very democratic in remembering anything you tell it.  Even what you did last summer.  You know.  With the frogs, and the soapy water.