I woke up this morning to tremendous news!
A project submission i’ve been working on with @imran called Snapture just got accepted to Tim Oreilly’s Where 2.0 conference in San Jose in May! You’ve no idea how happy i am! I’m elated to the nth degree! i’m Happy up Here :)
‘Change we can believe in’ a Barack Obama’s mantra. A thought it’d be a good place to start. The internet is all about change, growing, moving, ever evolving into something new and exciting. Communities play a big part on the internet and even more so in a presidential campaign and much more so in an American election race. ‘Change we can believe in’ It’s on his posters his website, on news sites, on blogs, on tech blogs, on his blog, it’s pretty much everywhere! His grass roots movement, which mobilized the democratic base can be seen as one of the most successful startups in history. They raised an insane amount of funds, six million dollars in two years to be more precise. (1)
I think there were two things that played a big role in his campaign, the internet technologies he incorporated in his campaign and his charm. Although I’m sure it would be fascinating to quantify Obama’s charm from a social online perspective. I’m afraid this is not what this blog post is about. Obama used many tools to socially interact with his base. His website what probably his most successful tool. The way in which members could register and find out more about those who were registered to vote in their local constancies and find out more about how to promote Obama in that area. I think it was mainly the successful way in which all the volunteers could coordinate around a website and across the fifty states. Alright yes he did use the microblogging service Twitter, not him per say but his ‘people’ and I found that by following him he could’ve used twitter in a more prolific way than he did. But still nonetheless kudos to him and his team for thinking of such a tool. (2)
It’s extremely funny and frightening when you get a call from your father telling you about twitter when you have been using it for the past few years and that at the time when I tried to explain the concept of 140 characters and the phenomenon of presence. No one seemed to get it or wanted to understand. It really very ironic how popular it is now which is great to see. My only wish is that more politicians, perhaps this side of the pond apply what Obama did so successfully in his campaign.
Something which also worries me is that Obama’s website has the largest emailing list in history ever! Granted the majority of them are probably American citizens. Thinking about it a lot of marketing people would love to get their hands on something like that.
There was a candidate for the recent elections in that state of Israel who pretty much copied Obama’s site exactly. (3) Successful though he was I think this says more about Obama’s campaign and his website rather than imitating slogans and layout colours and themes.
In fact you can quantify his charm from a social perspective.
Stepping away from Obama and his success and to look more at home. ‘Number 10 beta’. Does that mean anything to you? It should! It’s our beloved number 10 downing street’s website. I think it’s scary that as a British citizen I would not want anything my government does to be in Beta, Alpha or any other test phases, it should be in full release! I think the way that Google keeps everything in beta (except their search engine) has gotten to them (3). The epetiion idea is celver, I would like to think that they would develop something more in a social interactive way where users would be able to see more on what they petitioned and if it was taken into consideration and if it helped in the plight of what the petition was there for in the first place. (4)
Would you like to vote online? Is it a good idea? What does the future hold for politics and communities online. Latvia seems to think so. (5)
1. Sarah Lai Stirland (2008) Wired: Obama Campaign Raises More Than $6 million Post Super Tuesday [internet] Avialble from: http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/02/obama-campaign.html
2. Ari Herzog (2009) Mashable: How Should President Obama Use Twitter? [internet] Available from: http://mashable.com/2009/01/23/president-obama-twitter/
3. Ethan Bronner and Noam Cohen (2008) The New York Post: Israeli Candidate Borrows a (Web) Page From Obama [internet] Available from: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/15/world/middleeast/15bibi.html
3. John Oates (2008) The Register: Brown’s website is Web2.0tastic [internet] Available from: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/13/tendowning_blogtastic/
4. John Lettic (2007) The Register: Downing Street’s website, the e-petitions hit tart [internet] Available from: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/04/number10_visitor_stats/
5. Agence France-Presse (2007) Inquirer: Latvia plans e-voting for 2009 elections [internet] Available from: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/infotech/view_article.php?article_id=104723
After watching a movie called Michael Clayton I was struck by this idea of collaborative detective work or perhaps a crowd sourcing detective network would be a better term, to help solve crimes or cases that puzzled detectives and remained unsolved. Many movies follow this concept. Where someone who knew something and was able to share their opinion or share what they knew whether factually correct or not it could certainly be collected and be taken into consideration and have the potential to help solve a case, lead to a clue or discredit a witness for example.
That being said even if general users who knew nothing about a particular topic were able to view evidence of a certain unsolved case detectives find puzzling. The well known theory of where a fresh pair of eyes can see more than a tired pair i would think would be very useful to the police services that protect us. The way to implement this is however tricky and there are undoubtedly areas where this idea could fail entirely. But nonetheless i do think it should be thought about more heavily and be taken into consideration.
This is already being done in many ways such as youtube postings of missing persons or videos regarding information about a certain case. Hoping that putting that information to a youtube audience may help the investigators gain a clue that perhaps will solve their case or lead to solving it. Such as a case with the Greater Manchester’s Police youtube channel (1). Also the way in which Canadian police used to help they’re search on a missing girls case (2).
There is much scope for development here. I believe this is just the beginning in the way police services will interact with a community online. Allowing users to watch videos is very passive way but but it’s a start and I’d like to think that in the near future the idea very proactive police work by humble diligent citizen to keep the peace and be vigilant in tackling crimes in their local area in this way has much potential to succeed. Imagine if every area in your country, every borough, county, city or town had a youtube channel like this for example to keep you aware to give you information or to ask for help or to show you what is going on in your area. Like Avon and Somerset Police for example (3). I really think there is huge potential to develop a community based around this and like to think that most governments or town councils should be thinking in this way perhaps. For example a system that gathers evidences, clues and potential leads that detectives have gathered and show them to an online (trusted) group of online users who perhaps have expertise or knew the victims or criminals and are willing to help to catch the crook or solve the case. These users look at clues and recorded statements and try to come up with theories of they’re own or perhaps expand ones that detectives are already thinking of. Yes the users aren’t trained detectives and but the potential for this idea to work is huge. Citizens are allowed to make a citizens arrest and then the police come and take over. Why couldn’t that idea be applied here? To an online database of unsolved cases that could potentially be solved by a controlled group of users who may have relevant information or industry knowledge of the case at hand.
However it could potentially be used to lead police down a dead end if an unworthy or shady user takes part or those aiding and abetting a criminal do. I would assume that personal backgrounds would be checked and users toughly vetted if a system like this were to potentially succeed. Having a very closely monitored group of users who have a very clean history.
You could even delve into a pre-cognition concept in where a community of users could essentially tag a person depending on their criminal history and they’re background and predict whether he’s likely or and unlikely candidate to commit a crime in the future. That person could be one to watch or keep a close eye on or someone to talk to if he was related or knew someone who has committed a crime or is in the police’s radar. A facebook for criminals if you will.
We could call them collaborative crowd sourced consultants of her majesty’s police force.
1. Youtube (2006) [internet] Available from: http://www.youtube.com/user/gmpolice Accessed 3rd of February 2009
2. CBC News (2007) [internet] Available from: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2007/02/01/youtube-missinggirl.html Accessed 3rd of February 2009
3. Youtube (2007) [internet] Available from: http://www.youtube.com/user/ASPolice Accessed 3rd of February 2009
