You have arrived at the web home of Noah Brier. This is mostly an archive of over a decade of blogging and other writing. You can read more about me or get in touch. If you want more recent writing of mine, most of that is at my BrXnd marketing x AI newsletter and Why Is This Interesting?, a daily email for the intellectually omnivorous.
The other day Michael asked a question that relates closely to something I've been noodling on for a while: "Is it ethical to blog about something that you find through a link from a contact inside your network?"
Personally I believe the answer is yes, mainly because I see posting your links to del.icio.us as another form of blogging. But putting aside the ethical issues, for a moment, it seems we are at an interesting time in the development of self expression. Mainly, it is now possible to express yourself via your implicit gestures instead of just your explicit ones.
I know that sounds strange, and I have to admit, I don't have this idea fully baked. But basically as a result of digital technology and the metadata it creates, we are able to share parts of our lives in much more fluid ways and that brings up a whole lot of unknowns when it comes to social interaction.
How about a concrete example? Netflix allows you to add friends, when you do so you expose your queue and watched movies list to them. For the first time (maybe ever) I can keep up with what my friends are up to without any conversations. While they had to approve our 'friendship,' after that there's no additional work or reminders that all your actions on the site are being recorded and exposed to your friends. In a way it allows us to 'converse' without the conversation.
In the not-too-distant future, we will be able to 'blog' much of our world: Our phones will be able to record our locations and upload them and our televisions will record all our shows and make recommendations.
I'm kind of out of it and having trouble formulating a conclusion. So how about I leave that up to you.
[CONCLUSION GOES HERE]