CNN ran an opinion story yesterday with the unfortunate title: Is the Internet hurting children? Of course, this is done to provoke debate: they know what they’re doing.

But as I read through the story I couldn’t help but notice the author’s attempt to color the internet (which is actually neutral) as automatically detrimental to kids vs. placing any responsibility on parents. As is typical in these types of stories.

What also strikes me in these anti-technology stories is they never seem to take into account or reference how the previous generation functioned. Children today are part of a vibrant media-literate culture which encourages collaboration through art, knowledge and projects on a global scale.

The next generation of kids will be not only media-literate, they will be active participants by default instead of passive consumers. Instead of the past where children would consume hours of TV a day — a huge % of their waking time gone, forever — they’ll be active and involved in the media creation process.

Imagine a future generation who accept information and ideas not through top-down authority, but through research and each other. A generation able to deftly fact check ideas and not blindly consume stories or traditions because they’re presented as truth. Imagine a generation empowered to question everything. This will reshape those with power in the future.

Further, with so much educational materials at their fingertips the opportunity for children to learn is limitless: many universities such as MIT and conferences like TED open source their materials for global consumption. Enterprising young individuals encouraged and inspired by their parents have opportunity at their fingertips in a way that was never before possible.

It is unfortunate that some seek to paint technology in a dark light, as if it is something parents should fear. This is the wrong mindset and not very helpful. Instead, media need to be framing the shift for our culture that programming is the new literacy. That is, if we want our economy to succeed in the future.

Update: Techdirt has picked this up too.

The Internet Is (Still) Not Hurting Children is from The Future Buzz, a Blog Covering Digital Marketing

The “web is dead” linkbait discussions are back, spurred in part by recent IPO news but also by various tech pundits (ironically enough, the discussions started at sites on the open web).

Except I don’t think the open web is going anywhere anytime soon. Even with the proliferation of the modern walled gardens. My opinion is that at this point, it is going to be “and” not “or.” And it makes the most sense to develop a digital strategy that invests in both the open web and in other people’s platforms in such a way that is designed to meet outcomes (vs. just being trendy).

I was going to comment on a few of the threads floating around to bring my perspective, yet again, to the whole “web is dead” meme. Seth Godin actually did a great job of this ages ago.

But I had some new thoughts so decided to put them in one place on why the future is bright for the open web:

Media companies (modern and traditional) are not just going to abandon their sovereignty

The web enables true independence for both emerging and traditional media companies. It allows them freedom as it serves as a home base that plugs into other platforms (open and closed) and enables robust distribution (search, social, email, RSS). It also allows monetization in creative ways without restriction. It doesn’t make sense for these brands to completely yield their presence to the stream or a closed platform. Ask the Huffington Post, CNN, Techdirt or even The Oatmeal to abandon their sites and they’d look at you like you’re crazy. Besides, there exists a robust set of tools to integrate sites with different platforms: setup correctly, you can have your cake and eat it too.

Serious artists / content creators use both corporately-owned platforms and independent

We live in a fragmented media world where no one has a monopoly on attention. What this means is that adopting an “and” not “or” mindset is the safest play. Build up multiple platforms of equity and don’t just survive, thrive. If one falls out of favor, no big deal. Even smarter is to experiment, then refine as you go using data. Look at how some of the most successful independent content creators like Darren Rowse and Chris Brogan operate: they’re active on emerging platforms like Google+ and have engaged audiences there. But in addition, they have successful sites which have their own design and personality with a unique community they’ve nurtured for years acting as a hub. They smartly see digital attention is not a winner take all situation and instead of turning their back on some audiences, they take a holistic approach.

Archives still have a lot of value for real people (even if early adopters continue to ignore this)

Remember when Wikipedia was down for one day and so many “regular” (as opposed to us geeks) web users freaked out? The highest value of Wikipedia on any given day is in the archives / tail. Sure, it’s being updated and improved upon but the archival value of information organized and accessible on a global scale, across platforms doesn’t decrease with time. If anything, it increases. This is true in each niche as well. The world benefits from an archive of information as much as what’s new, now. These two dynamics (real-time vs. archives) aren’t in opposition, rather they support each other.

RSS / email are far from dead, they’re actually really useful. Just not “sexy” – but who cares when you can easily use them too?

For sites I manage personally (and for clients) we track RSS / email subscribers in tandem with social / web analytics. They’re certainly not “sexy” for content distribution these days. But why not use them when, at least for sites we market, we see increases in metrics not just from a volume perspective, but consistently high open / read rates from these channels as they’re mechanisms which allow opt in at the source. And so frequently, our brands with high amounts of RSS and email subscribers have built the right type of community for their content to be organically shared across all web platforms.

As a digital marketer and content creator, my professional workstation always beats mobile for real work

A lot of people like to talk about how the landscape for computing is shifting to mobile and somehow this “kills the web.” I don’t see increased use of mobile as something that destroys a full web experience on a desktop, or laptop + high resolution display. While I love the mobile web from a consumption perspective, I do real work while at my workstation, with multiple monitors, in an ergonomically correct space. I vest hours of time in developing digital strategies, analyzing data, creating content, etc. And so a majority of my computing time in a professional sense is in a desktop platform, where the web still shines. It’s the same for others I talk with who do most of their computing while practicing their craft as opposed to simply consuming.

An alternative perspective…

Perhaps the open web is not in opposition to corporately-owned platforms. I’d argue they actually work together, something we see daily with how news is spread, reacted to and remixed / built upon as just one example.

While some continue to cry the sky is falling on the common web, I look at how digital communications have evolved over the years and see those who took a platform agnostic approach embracing an independent presence (along with new outposts that made sense) still here.

Do we really think everyone’s just going to stop creating on channels they own and only participation in other people’s platforms? Why not both?

image credit: Shutterstock

The Open Web (Still) Isn’t Going Away is from The Future Buzz, a Blog Covering Digital Marketing

But it isn’t just Facebook.

Other media entities are yielding their presence to the stream and short-circuiting the ability for users to share their content. They are helping Facebook gaslight the web.

Case in point, this weekend I tried to share a link to a story in The Guardian I found interesting:

You’ll note (as I highlighted in a red box) even my browser recognized this was a link to the publication’s website, not Facebook.

However, due to how The Guardian has configured their site’s Facebook integration, anyone clicking the link is not taken to the expected URL. Instead a user is taken to this page to authorize use of The Guardian application:

Note, in extremely light gray, by adding their app to Facebook you are opting in to the Guardian’s 3,000+ word TOS merely to access a link.

To access this story elsewhere was ridiculously easier than in Facebook (I originally found it via Twitter). It was just one click, of course. That’s how the web works. But within Facebook’s system and the need to add an application (and share detailed information / yield rights to a third party) this is just obnoxious. I don’t need to add apps on Twitter, Reddit, Google+ or anywhere else to view a link. It’s terrible user experience any way you slice it.

The worst part of this situation is I had no idea that by sharing a link I was going to force my network to install an app merely to view it. Facebook and The Guardian broke my anticipated action of linking to an article. Instead, they redirected my link to an app (not at all my intention).

All this does is leaves a bad taste in my mouth and basically motivates me to take my sharing elsewhere. Because who wants to share content in a platform that adds complexity and brings your network to something you did not intend to share?

I understand the point is to create a more friction-free experience later. However, I am ruthlessly selective in what I share with my networks. I don’t immediately share everything, because I place high value on signal over noise. Personally I don’t want friction free sharing as this would ruin my ability to pass on items of value, plus remove the ability to add context.

Further, no media outlet is so important I am willing to install an app, grant them access to my information / opt into their TOS merely to view a web page. I read a diverse amount of publications and am unwilling to solve every single media outlet, blog, or site I read at the app level. That’s annoying and intrusive.

But perhaps this is Facebook’s route? Ignore the power users and drive them to share elsewhere, while making the masses jump through hoops to ensure sharing happens at scale. Clearly, more social actions increase reasons to return to their network. My thinking is this is another tactic they’re using to try and beat the 90-9-1 rule.

If You Like Links, You’ll Hate What Facebook Is Doing To Them is from The Future Buzz, a Blog Covering Digital Marketing

Another day, another “back in my day things were better,” anti-technology story. Good Magazine recently published a post with the unfortunate title: Just Google It: How Search Engines Stunt College Students’ Research Skills. Let that sink in for a moment.

First of all, blaming new technology for a lack of any type of ability in a new generation is absurd. In fact, I would argue the opposite: more technology and greater democratization of tools and information makes people smarter. I grew up with search engines and learned all the advanced search operators I could find. In college, I drafted many research papers and was able to use a hybrid approach of systems within libraries and open search engines on the web. Not only was I successful in drafting research papers this way, it nurtured an ability to research while young which certainly was a factor in inspiring me to become a web publisher.

And yet, not everyone sees technology as a positive. They’re actively looking to demonize something, so of course it’s easier just to blame technology instead of owning issues themselves.

Let’s go through the points in the article and consider just how silly this is:

The researchers, who interviewed students, librarians, and other academic staff at five universities, found that modern students often are unable to figure out which academic journals and databases they need to access to write a paper or complete a project. If they do know which database to use, they get stuck whenever finding the information requires them to do more than type in a few keywords and click enter.

What this quote says to me is a lack of successful education of these students. I don’t see how you can blame the fact that search engines exist on an inability of students to understand which academic journals and databases are necessary to use. Seems like they either haven’t been given the proper tools to understand this, or these students were told / given tools and didn’t use them.

Same thing with “getting stuck.” Someone please connect these issues to Google for me. Even in a pre-search world, these would be typical problems of college students. The author is reminiscing about a reality that never existed: that all (or even a majority) of students were academically gifted, motivated and talented. When was that ever a reality?

Continuing…

This inability to do serious research also has implications beyond campus. “Many (but not all) students are not gaining the information literacy skills in college that they will need in their future careers,”Andrew D. Asher, one of the authors of the study, told the Australian news website The Conversation. “This isn’t just about doing academic research, but also about being a savvy, reflective, and critical consumers of information.”

Doesn’t this seem like an issue with the education system not the fact that companies have developed search engines? I still don’t see how the title of this blog post connects with this story content. Further, Andrew’s opinion here is just wrong. Did calculators ruin our society’s ability to achieve success in math and carry computational skills into their desired industries? Seems like yet another technophobic professor.

Commenter Chris Bigenho made a good point about the validity of this argument:

An old argument: Students are not as bright about their research today because of Google. The claims made in this argument are poor at best as our memories about student’s abilities to do research prior to the Internet age-“Good Old Days” when students knew research-are foggy. I recall working at a research library and was amazed by the number of students who stood before the card catalog with a look on their face indicating they had no idea where to begin. And don’t even get me started with the Readers Guide and journal stacks. Intellectual curiosity is not something lost on this generation; it never really was a trait of any generation. There are those who fall outside the norm and they become the researchers and intellectuals of the day. The rest will stand before that card catalog or Google and believe they have done enough when they find their first resource. Sad, I know. But blaming the technology for student’s lack of ability to do research just does not hold water.

One final note about this study: it was conducted by a library association. Who clearly have a bias to, well, promote libraries. And library research is something that will go the way of the dinosaur in the future. The notion that students even still need to go to a specific location to obtain information that is universally accessible is a quaint idea.

With more and more technology-savvy organizations, non-profits, companies and universities open-sourcing data and research on the web, are gated research databases and physical libraries even going to matter in a world with all content accessible anywhere? Let’s proactively file libraries along with the yellow pages and the remaining living artifacts. Eventually we’ll just have social spaces with internet connections. That’s all we need.

Maybe we should also get upset at the fact that kids these days don’t know how to drive a whip and buggy.

image credit: Shutterstock

Dumb Students? Easy Fix: Blame Search Engines, Not Schools is from The Future Buzz, a Blog Covering Digital Marketing

It has gotten to the point it is surprising when a day goes by without news of actions from record labels that frustrates me equally as an artist, a digital marketer and a music fan. I’ve had discussions with some of my friends in all of these categories (artists, marketers and fans) and the feeling of frustration is pretty much unanimous.

One of the main reasons I’m interested in highlighting the issue is because I have a passion for seeing ideas spread. For everyone from artists to companies, the notion of a level playing field for content distribution is something I passionately believe in. So it especially bothers me when an industry which has been disrupted by such a change seeks to cling to the past to selfishly protect their model. This is at the expense of a better future for artists as a whole.

Let me explain. The notion of “hits” as artists in our society is not an organic one. We are all innately creative and really anyone can make art. This is a quality that is not unique to a select few, but unique to our species. It is just a question if that talent is nurtured or not. In the last century or so, we’ve gone the other direction with art. We’ve structured the music industry around an elite selection of hits as opposed to celebrating and encouraging all of us to create. It’s obvious the economic forces at play reinforce this.

And so the notion of being a musician has carried a stigma associated with it. That it’s basically not a strategy to bank your life on. Of course, the web flipped distribution. So a generation which grew up with file sharing as the default will eventually balk at the notion of artificially created hits and, rather, find their own path. I am hoping in time this – along with democratization of high quality audio production tools will long term trend us to a culture that nurtures artists as default.

Yet the “very official” seeming music industry is, in the grand scheme of things still new and hardly immutable. The labels know this. Especially in a digital society. Which is why if the labels had there way they would put remove, limit or otherwise inhibit the free exchange of data.

This, of course, comes at the expense of independent content creators. As an artist I don’t pirate music. But I use file sharing tools to enable the distribution of my art. Without file sharing I would have zero mechanism to share my music at any degree of scale, it is far too inefficient without it to reach beyond those I can connect with physically. It has been such an overwhelmingly positive force as an independent artist I’ve gone as far as telling people it has never been a better time to be a content creator. Of any sort: journalist, musician, videographer – if you meet someone in one of these trades who is not optimistic they have the wrong viewpoint of the world.

With the actions of the labels (and even movie studios) over the past decade, can we have any viewpoint other than the entertainment industry as a whole is anti-internet? How can any rational person possibly come to a different conclusion?

Today I was thinking about it and something struck me: the labels will continue their tirade forever, or at least as long as they can pay their attorneys. Based on previous actions they have no other move. It’s a near perfect example of attrition warfare. They have gone so far down this path it is basically inconceivable they would pivot tomorrow and embrace the web. I’d love for that to happen but it’s just not a reality. Maybe we’ll all be surprised one day. But in a world the labels choose fantasyland over 100 million in cash, well, that pretty much tells you the direction they are taking.

So what can we do? Really the only solution is to stop supporting the major labels (if you still do). They don’t deserve it: the way they treat artists, fans and even technology companies is almost 100% user-hostile. They litigate, roadblock and otherwise stand in the way of progress. The good news is they can’t fight this war of attrition and maintain their existing model forever. Eventually consumers, artists and those who want to see ideas spread can win.

Record Labels Decade-Long Anti-Internet Tirade Is Attrition Warfare is from The Future Buzz, a Blog Covering Digital Marketing