Category Archives: Media – online/new

Lifecasters

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Yahoo reporter Kevin Sites spends his time chronicling the people of the web, with his latest article looking at lifecasters.

These folks broadcast every moment of every day via webcam — whether they be walking, talking, working or just vegging out. Justin Kan, for instance, has his camera mounted on a hat. He livestreams everything via a WiFi link to the laptop in his backpack (just don’t confuse him with someone who makes plaster casts of the body).

He has collected a group of lifecasters at his site, Justin.tv. One of the stars is Justine Ezarik, who, according to Sites:

has model good looks and easy cyber savvyness that attracts both technophiles and casual users alike… [she] pulls off the tech-heavy setup with style, wearing a green sundress and camera mounted to a floppy Greek fisherman’s cap which, despite the dangling cables, still allows her to appear more woman than Borg.

Calm down, man. I guess it’s easy to illustrate an article with a pretty lady; even though Justin set the site in motion the Yahoo blurb and pics focus on Justine.

I can’t imagine why one would want to sacrifice their privacy for the sake of a website. I don’t like giving out personal information on this blog in written form; I could never allow the world to watch as I wandered about.
Sure, there’s the revenue and career potential. It could be great for advertising, and this in turn could create employment opportunities for the lifecaster. But is it worth it? Are they giving away too much of themselves for the off-chance of (even modest) fame or fortune? That is something only the lifecasters can answer.

Although I despise reality television, I found myself actively watching some people on Justin.tv. Sarah, for example, was at a meeting of podcasters while at the same time chatting with her viewers. Now, I can’t say I’d still be watching if she was just walking around the place, but nonetheless she had me watching her feed. Was it the novelty? Was it the subject matter? I know not for sure.

Glorious articles

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My post on the trip to Germany is taking longer than expected, largely because I’m sorting out a few photos to go with it. In the meantime, here’s more of what I’ve been reading over the last 24 hours, some of which has appeared in my del.icio.us feed.

BBC: Astronomers find a planet 70% larger than Jupiter. That would make it the biggest extra-solar world yet known.

CNet: Is a time machine possible? An Israeli professor is examining ways to curve space and time.

Ars Technica: Blogging to reach its peak in 2007. There are also 200 million ex-bloggers, apparently.

Scientific American: Guerilla wi-fi to put a billion more people online. A US firm plans to change the world.

That’s Ireland: Temptresses, winged frogs and Vatican demons. A deconstruction of the first issue of The Hibernian, a monthly magazine dedicated to “faith, family and country”.

International Herald Tribune: Wayward police officers must wear pink armbands of shame. If you’re a copper in Bangkok and you break the rules, you get to wear a Hello Kitty armband.

Slate: How “educational” baby videos stupefy kids. Children are better off watching things like American Idol, it seems.

Scholars and Rogues: Ending poverty means abandoning charity and accepting reality. Long-term charity is not the way out of poverty.

Charity meme

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Gavin tagged me, so:

And so I tag:

Harry

Félim

Rick

Mick

Dan

Get outta my data, Google

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Google is to limit the amount of time it retains users’ search data to 18 months from 18-24 months.

The Financial Times sees this as a concession to the EU, which wrote to the internet giant last month asking Google to justify its policy.

Google’s move relates to terms entered in the search engine and the address of various servers, but not more personal information it has collected with users’ express permission.

However, company’s privacy counsel Peter Fleischer said future data retention laws may obligate the firm to keep the data for 24 months after all. But hey, at least they’re not keeping it indefinitely any more.

Fleischer wrote on the official Google blog:

“The internet is a global medium, and the principles at stake – privacy, security, innovation and legal obligations to retain data – have an impact beyond Europe, and outside of the realm of privacy. These principles sometimes conflict: while shorter retention periods are good for privacy, longer retention periods are needed for security, innovation and compliance reasons. We believe we’ve struck a reasonable balance between these various factors.”

You can read his full post here, where he also outlines the reasons why Google believes it should retain search data.

At least it’s movement on the company’s part to tackle concerns over how it uses data — a British watchdog at the weekend branded the firm among the worst on the web when it came to users’ privacy.

I’d rather they keep my search data for no longer than six months, but there you go. I enjoy my privacy and have been known to defend it fiercely — surely I’m not the only one?