The Media In 2014...From Predictions Made In 2004!

One of my favorite short films back in 2004 was one called "Epic 2014".  It was faux documentary that purported to report on the media scene in 2014.  It walks the viewer quickly through the history of the internet from Tim Berners-Lee up to 2004 (when the film was made) and then it begins to "report"/speculate about what the next ten years will hold.

If you haven't ever watched it or haven't watched it in awhile, take 8 minutes right now to take a look:



There is some silly stuff here (like Google-zon) and the video does not really hint at the rise of stuff like Facebook and Twitter (much less Instagram and Tinder...).

But the takeaway is an eerily prescient statement concerning the current state of the internet:

"At its best, edited for the savviest readers, [the internet] is a summary of the world - deeper, broader and more nuanced than anything available ever before.  But at its worst, and for too many,  [the internet] is merely a collection of trivia, much of it untrue, all of it narrow, shallow and sensational. But [the current state of the internet ] is what we wanted.  It is what we chose."

I don't know of anything that is quite this well done (or this insightful) about the future of the internet over the next 10 years (leave a comment if you do!) but I suspect that much of what we will be looking backwards at will involve new technologies like the one demonstrated in the 2 minute video below from Microsoft:



In case you are curious, the hardware and software capable of doing all this is coming to you next year.

Yes, Virginia, The Internet Is Big! (Lifehacker)

In case you were wondering...

Click on the image for the full view.

Via Lifehacker.

Internet Connectivity In Africa (AppAfrica.net)

The blog White African recently pointed to a post on AppAfrica that featured an amazing infographic of the state of African internet connectivity in 2009. The pic below is too hard to read but it gives you an idea of what is in the document. You can, however download a very detailed view (as well as some shots of specific areas of interest) from Flickr.

"It's The Filter, Stupid!" And Other Links Of Interest (Link List)

Too many fascinating things crossing my desk today...

Lifehacker is carrying a video (see below) of Clay Shirky's brilliant speech at the recent Web 2.0 Expo in New York on information overload and filtering. I know, I know; it sounds like it is about as much fun as exploratory surgery, but once you start to watch I think you will be (as I was) riveted. Shirky puts an entirely different spin on information overload and then makes a compelling case for his point of view. It made me look at the issue from an entirely different perspective.



The "filtering problem" that Shirky discusses is about to get bigger if Technorati's 2008 The State Of The Blog report is any indication (Check out the graphic below -- click on it to go to the report). They will be releasing it in bits and pieces. So far they have put out the Intro and their section on "Who Are The Bloggers?" The answers will surprise you, I suspect, as the blogosphere continues to not only grow in terms of numbers but also to broaden in terms of appeal.



One of the possible solutions to filtering is known as the "semantic web", where the computer and user can understand each other in more natural terms. Thomson Reuters has just released its semantic application, Calais, into the wild to see what people do with it (Thanks, Krishna!). See the promo video below:




The Institute For The Future (wouldn't you love to work there?) is putting together its own what-could-be-called filtering solution in the form of a predictive game called "Superstruct". The game doesn't go online until 6 OCT 2008 but it looks a good bit like Impact Game's "Play The News" which I think is a fantastic (and sometimes humbling) learning tool. The video below gives you some idea of the type of scenario they will be examining but you really need to go to the site to get the details

NextGen Browsers (Adaptive Path)

John Robb over at Global Guerrillas, pointed me (among others) to a very interesting video put together by Adaptive Path on a vision of the near term future of internet browsers. Given that virtually everything anyone does in intelligence analysis has some sort of browsing associated with it, I thought this would be a particularly fascinating video for most people.

I have included Part 1 below but you can see the full four part series at Adaptive Path's Aurora Concept Video website. It is also interesting to note that Mozilla Labs is the sponsor for this series on the next generation browser. Can anyone say "Firefox 4.0"?


Aurora (Part 1) from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.

Nixon Could've Invented The Internet And Other Gems (Secrecy News)

Secrecy News reports on the recent declassification and release of a previously Top Secret/Sensistive/Codeword document regarding the strengths, weaknesses and, surprisingly, the methods of preparation of the CIA's President's Daily Brief (PDB) under Nixon and Kissinger. Secrecy News highlights the inconsistencies of the CIA's position with regard to the declassification of PDBs (According to Meredith Fuchs at the National Security Archive (and quoted in the Secrecy News piece), "What is most amazing is that one day they say the method of producing [the PDB] is so secret that nothing about the document can be disclosed, and then not long after they release this detailed, hour by hour explanation of how it is produced...") but there are other golden nuggets of information in this document:

• Policymaking vs. Intelligence. There is an extensive discussion about the relationship between the PDB and the NSC's own policy and analysis "Situation Room document" and the degree to which they overlapped and competed. Andrew Marshall, the author of the memo to Kissinger, summed up with the comment "the success of the Situation Room Product probably has driven the CIA's PDB out of the focus of the President's attention". Ouch!

• Office Politics And Intelligence. Check out this quote: "This situation presents a number of awkward problems. The CIA is not likely to suggest stopping production of the PDB. CIA has a major institutional stake in the PDB. It will not give it up easily. Moreover, in a recent discussion with Jack Smith, he strongly expressed his view that the CIA people almost consider themselves almost as part of the President's staff. They have no other natural superior. I told him I thought that view somewhat unrealistic in organizational and bureaucratic terms. But nonetheless, it may be the view of some of them and suggestive of their likely reluctance to given up production of the PDB. Over time they are likely to find out about the current situation if it persists." The condescension is almost palpable here. It is interesting to note that this reaction was only relevant to Nixon. Apparently (according to the document) Kennedy and Johnson thought highly of the CIA product.

• It is also worth noting the number of clear statements of likelihood in this paragraph. The intelligence community has wrestled with the question of Words of Estimative Probability for many years and I wonder if there is a correlation between how the CIA products were being written at the time and the desires of the decisionmakers -- particularly Kissinger. If Kissinger liked, for example, documents with clear statements of likelihood (whether that preference were implicit or explicit), you would expect to find that mirrored in his staff's reports and, more importantly, in his staff's selection of reports for the President to read. Perhaps it was the way they were written that kept them off the President's desk...
  

• Lack of Feedback and Information Overload. Both of these topics are covered extensively in this document. Like WEPs, these two problems have a long history with the intelligence community and it is interesting to see a senior level staffer address them so directly.

• Nixon and the Internet. One of the most interesting discussions comes at the end of the document where the author cautiously recommends a new sort of intelligence portal for Kissinger and the President:

• Sounds a lot like the internet to me, complete with hyperlinks, etc. Apparently it did not happen at least partly because, as the report itself notes, "the balance of experience has been that top-level executives don't like gadgets."