Students Think First Amendment Rights Go "Too Far"

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

That's the text of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution -- a guiding principle of our nation that men and women have fought for for over 200 years. Yet when asked about it in a recent survey, more than one in three high school students believed the First Amendment goes "too far" in protecting individual freedoms.

The survey revealed other alarming attitudes among high schoolers. For instance, half the students felt that the government should approve news stories prior to their release, and 17% believed that people should not be allowed to express unpopular views.

The majority of the students also displayed a poor understanding of what is protected under the Bill of Rights. For instance, most did not realize that controversial forms of protest such as flag burning were legal.

The survey suggests that students are simply not informed about the Constitution, and that schools are doing a poor job in teaching civics and motivating students to take an interest in government. However, a follow-up study would be useful to gain a deeper understanding of exactly why high school students hold these beliefs. Are they simply ill-informed? Or are they actually more reactionary than the older generation? Are these beliefs held across the board, or do they represent a specific subset of students? If students were to learn more about politics, government and American history, would that change the way they feel about the First Amendment?

Source: CNN.com

First Amendment

Blogging the Iraqi Elections

A blog called Friends of Democracy has been chronicling the progress of the Iraqi elections from a street-level, Iraqi perspective. The blog includes both photo and audio feeds. The project is financed by Spirit of America, a group that supports American military and civilian personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Other blogs covering the situation in Iraq from an insider's perspective include Baghdad Burning and Baghdad Dweller. Of course, all the liberal and conservative political blogs are having their say on the results of the Iraqi elections as well. The CyberJournalist blog has a comprehensive list of other blogs covering the elections and other events in Iraq.

Source: Michelle Malkin

Iraq

Computers are Lousy Readers

The process of watching a child learn how to read is nothing short of fascinating. The moment when a child "gets it" and can not only recognize letters and words, but understand what he or she is reading, is a testament to the power of the human mind.

Understanding the context of the written word, however, has so far eluded even the most powerful computers. Indeed, we're all familiar with OCR programs that scan a printed page and spew out gibberish. Now, the Pentagon is taking on the challenge of developing literate computers.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency -- the good folks who brought you, among other things, the Internet -- has contracted with scientists to develop a computer system that can learn by understanding natural language, the way people do, as well as interpret nuance. The idea is to develop computers that can be taken into the battlefield and adapt to constantly changing, chaotic surroundings. A truly literate computer could be given an open-ended instruction, such as "go scout out that area over there," and be able to execute it.

Source: AP (Excite)
computers reading

Mink, LA, Gets Phone Service

Annoyed that you can't get DSL service in your area? Be glad you haven't lived in Mink, Louisiana, all these years. The rural town has just gotten telephone service -- that's plain old telephone service -- after campaigning for it since 1970. BellSouth Corp. recently wired the isolated hamlet at a cost of $700,000, or $47,000 per phone (a cost that will be subsidized by other Louisiana phone customers). And you thought the new Motorola Razr cell phones were pricey!

The state has set up a commission to look into ensuring that all its residents have phone service of some kind, simply as a public safety measure. Another unwired rural town, Shaw, got a cell phone tower recently after a resident had a heart attack and died before an EMT crew could be contacted.

As we ponder the 21st century, it's instructive to realize that many of our citizens -- even here in the US -- are barely in the 19th or 20th centuries when it comes to some technologies. Understanding that will help us to better apply technology in a meaningful way.

Source: CNN.com
telephones Louisiana

How Wikis Could Change Business Communications

Public relations expert Steve Rubel blogs on how wikis have the potential to revolutionize the PR industry by providing a new tool for creating media directories. For those not familiar with the industry, media directories are used by advertising and PR agencies to locate media outlets such as newspapers, magazines and broadcast stations so they can purchase ad space/time or pitch stories. Directories are also extremely expensive, and must be updated frequently as personnel change and outlets come and go. As an example, Rubel cites TheNewPR Wiki, which aggregates business blogs and other PR resources.

Wikis are collaborative knowledge environments in which items can be freely added and edited. Perhaps the best-known wiki is Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia that anyone can edit and contribue to. Aside from the open-editing capability, wikis are in one respect a throwback to the early days of the Web, when the emphasis was on hyperlinking of content.

Terry Heaton says this about wikis:

Wikis are a much bigger deal than most people realize. They are yet another visible sign of Postmodernism in our culture — a rejection of the idea that knowledge should be controlled for profit. Wikis are anarchical, and that terrifies command and control, top-down thinkers (Modernists). Wikis are a very efficient method of building massive databases of searchable and organized information. It confounds Modernists that they actually work.

Wikis can certainly be used by any enterprise that needs to share and manage information... which is to say, any enterprise. If widely-used and reliable wikis emerge for media and other business directories, however, they will "bubble up" from below, developed by smart people for the benefit of other smart people. Don't expect the existing players in the directory industry to jump on this... although somebody could surprise us.

There's a parallel between wikis (which are human-friendly) and XML-based web services (which are machine-friendly) that can connect disparate systems from across business lines to create industry consortia. However, wikis may have the jump on web services, as they are easy and cheap to set up, can be created and managed with little IT overhead, and can be edited on the fly by anyone with the appropriate access.

Sources: Micro Persuasion, POMO Blog
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How Will Amish File Taxes Electronically?

When the state of Pennsylvania mandated that all businesses file their taxes electronically starting this February, no one apparently took into account the Amish, who shun electronics and most other modern conveneinces. Anna Fisher, an Amish woman who works at a furniture and craft store in Shrewsbury, Pennsylvania, says, "It's against our church rules to use electricity and computers. It was so simple doing it by paper. We try and keep our (business) as simple as we can."

The state says it is working with Amish business people to come up with alternatives.

Source: PittsburghLive.com, Drudge Report
Amish taxes

Micropayments: Big Money in Small Change

Gartner is predicting that online micropayments -- transactions ranging from $1 to $5 -- will become a driving force in e-commerce over the next decade. In fact, Gartner predicts that micropaypents will become a $60 billion market by 2015.

Lower transaction costs, combined with a demand for a la carte purchases of inexpensive digital items like music and ringtones, are driving the micropayment market. Also driving the trend are young people, who want to buy relatively inexpensive items online. Many types of subscription services could be sold "by the slice" via micropayments, making them more appealing to those who want to make occasional purchases with the committment or expense of a long-term subscription.

Micropayments are not new to e-commerce. What has been missing in the past is an infrastructure that would allow users to place money into accounts if they coundn't or didn't want to use traditional credit cards. Once such an account system is established with the universal acceptance and trustworthiness of, say, Visa or Mastercard, micropayments could truly take off.

Source: Forbes

The Digital Back-Channel

In his article about how the Internet "back channel" is empowering new constituencies and changing business, technologist Kevin Werbach makes an interesting comparison between the eruption of Krakatoa over a century ago and the tsunami that struck south Asia in December:

In 1883, a volcanic eruption produced a devastating tsunami that killed tens of thousands. As Simon Winchester details in his fine book, Krakatoa, the new technology of the telegraph allowed people around the world to learn of the disaster immediately, magnifying its historical significance.

Fast-forward 121 years. The recent Asian tsunami, also caused by seismic event near Indonesia, highlighted a similar revolution: The ability not only to receive information, but to respond in real time. In the two weeks following the disaster, nearly 200,000 customers of Amazon.com (AMZN) contributed $15 million to the American Red Cross relief fund through a link on the site's home page. Other leading Web sites had similar efforts. That couldn't have happened just a few years ago.

Source: MSNBC

End of the Broadcast Paradigm?

TV networks' fear of the FCC decency crackdown has reached such heights that Fox is now blurring out "naughty bits" on its Family Guy cartoon. With the recently-announced resignation of FCC chairman Michael Powell, there's no guarantee that the crackdown will let up -- indeed, an even more conservative chairman could take the helm.

Some folks welcome the crackdown on nudity, violence and offensive language, while others see it as a suppression of free speech. The arguing is sure to only get louder, and the only thing we'll be able to agree on is to disagree.

The problem, however, is not with the FCC, or with conservatives or liberals. The problem is the paradigm of broadcasting, which is contradictory in terms of viewers' rights. The "public airwaves" are treated as common space, and people have the right to not be exposed to things in public that would offend them. But at the same time, we informally hold that adults have the right to view most any type of material.

The threshold of applying standards is choice. Because one must make a conscious decision (and work a little harder) to read a book, go see a movie, listen to satellite radio or visit a website, those media are held to a much less rigorous decency standard than broadcast TV or radio. The choice factor also makes it easier to keep these materials away from children or others who don't wish to see them.

So is the solution to eliminate the broadcast paradigm altogether? If we must make a conscious choice to access any kind of information, would that end the need for a body like the FCC to apply arbitrary decency standards? If programming systems like On Demand make television an a la carte medium, and other video is delivered through broadband Internet, would this satisfy those who wish to see adult-oriented materials and those who don't?

The Death of Social Space

IPods are way cool, of course. But an unintended consequence of everyone (everyone young, that is) listening to one on personal headsets is that our sense of public space is changing, and not necessarily for the better.

Author John Naughton writes in the Guardian that personal music players, cell phones and the like are "coccooning" people so that they no longer interact when out in public. He writes:

The proportion of young people who never venture out in public without first putting on headphones is astonishing. And yet one rarely sees anyone over 40 similarly equipped. This will change with the maturing of generations who have grown up with headphones welded to their ears. And as a result, our concept of social space will change. Imagine the future: a crowded urban street, filled not with people interacting with one another, but with atomised individuals cocooned in their personalised sound-bubbles, moving from one retail opportunity to another. The only sounds are the shuffling of feet and the rock muzak blaring from the doorways of specialised leisurewear chains.

He compares this self-absorption with films shot in the early 20th century that show people conversing, being aware of their surroundings and considerate of other people.

Naughton's conclusion: personal technology changes behavior on a very personal level, making it easy to isolate one's self even when out in a crowd. Technology like iPods and cell phones are simply the latest entrants into a trend that began with the automobile and the suburb, which remove people from urban spaces and isolated them on a very physical level.

Socioligist argue that this has already affected the fundamental ways in which we relate to one another. For instance, we teach out children (correctly, sad to say) not to talk to strangers, that unfamiliar people are to be feared. This lesson carries over into adulthood. So why risk talking to anyone when you can listen to your iPod?

The loss of social space will continue to have profound consequences for the way our urban (and even suburban) spaces function, and the richness that we derive from the vibrancy that they used to generate. However, there's evidence that some are fighting back, especially against obnoxious cell phone talkers.

Source: Wired, Clippings.reblog

Climate Study Finds Earth Warming Faster Than Previously Thought

A climate research study run out of Oxford University in the UK has found that the Earth's climate is warming much faster and more drastically than previously believed, and that the planet's average temperature could increase anywhere from 2 to 11 degrees Celsius (36 to 52 degress F) over the next century.

"I think these results suggest that our need to do something about climate change is perhaps even more urgent," David Stainforth, the chief scientist in the study, says. "However, with our current state of knowledge, we can't yet define a safe level [of carbon dioxide] in the atmosphere."

Results from the study indicate that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels at 400 ppm would be considered "dangerous," though there's no consensus on what "dangerous" really means. The current level of CO2 in the atmosphere is 378 ppm, and rising at a rate of 2 ppm per year. By that reckoning, the Earth will reach that "dangerous" level in 11 years, assuming the increases remain steady.

ClimatePrediction.net uses a distributed comptuing model similar to that of SETI, where volunteers can add their PCs to the grid for running climate simulations. The network includes 95,000 computers from over 150 countries.

Sources: BBC, Slashdot

TV Advertisers to Deploy New Digital Tracking System

Advertisers who produce TV commercial in the US will soon begin using a new digital tracking system that will allow for more precise tracking of ads. Eventually, the system could be used to deliver custom-designed advertising to particular households.

Called Ad-ID, the system will use a 12-character code to identify each TV advertisement, and will serve as a central repository for all TV ads that can be monitored and controlled through intranets. The top four US TV networks (NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox) will comply with Ad-ID.

In the short term, the system is expect to cut costs and reduce the chances of ads being aired in the wrong slots. But eventually, advertisers hope to leverage Ad-ID to target ads to precise demographics. For instance, families with small children might see more ads for diapers and toys, whereas high-income households could see more ads for upscale products and services.

TV networks would have to develop the infrastructure to deliver such advertising, but the demographic data already exists through regionally segmented databases such as Claritas. Just for fun, look up your own ZIP Code in the Claritas PRIZM database to see the economic, social and lifestyle segments of people who live in your area.

Sources: USA Today, Future Now

Net Insecurities Hampering E-Commerce

A while back we commented on Internet users who were severely curtailing, and even halting, their Net usage due to worries about viruses, sypware and phishing scams. Now there's additional evidence that security issues are having a negative impact on e-commerce and other Internet business.

A Forrester Research survey found that 26% of banking customers surveyed would prefer to do their banking in person or via phone than online because of worries about phishing, and 19% don't trust the Internet enough to enroll in online banking programs. Similarly, a Harris Interactive poll found that e-commerce grew by only 1% in 2004, versus nearly 20% in 2003.

Needless to say, these are critical concerns for anyone whose business depends on the Internet. It's also conceivable that these concerns will move from the consumer to the enterprise sector, where response to security threats could well determine the future of e-commerce.

Source: CSO

The "Chipped" IT Executive

John Halamka, MD, chief information officer at Boston's CareGroup Healthcare System, is pioneering the use of implantable radio frequency identification (RFID) chips in a unique way. He's volunteered to have one implanted into his body.

The VeriChip, made by Applied Digital, is the size of a rice grain and contains a 16-digit number that can be captured by a reader and linked to data about the owner -- in this case, the person's medical records. The VeriChip, typically implanted between the shoulder blades, was approved for use by the FDA in October 2004.

Dr. Halamka joins about 40 other people in the US with implanted VeriChips. He will report on the results of his testing in February.

Source: Health Data Management

Your Next Phone Might Not Be a "Phone"

Technologist Russell Beattie ponders the role of mobile phones, and wonders why, with all their features and computing power, we only use them when we ourselves are "mobile"...

Mobile phones still need that killer app which takes out the need for context. They need to get to the point where they are less devices that you use while out and about, and considered more destinations in their own right. In other words, the current crop of apps are mostly created with that "mobile context" in mind. So you could say I haven't looked at my phone lately because I haven't been moving much. This is wrong. It's limiting a platform which can potentially do anything that a small computer with broadband access can do. The person who comes up with the app that compels a person to use their phone without considering the fact that it's a phone is going to have a killer app on their hand. One could argue the opposite, that mobile phone apps *should* only be used in the mobile context, but I think that's too narrow minded. [Emphasis added]

In other words, you're no longer talking about a phone, but something else entirely. Something that's not just a conglomeration of functions, but a device that can provide seamless, effortless communication whether it be text, sound, video or still images. To that end, the device that Russell Beattie envisions hasn't been invented yet, and may not for some time. Even if it were to be developed tomorrow, it would present such a radical communications paradigm that the general public would need time to warm up to it, more time to master it... and even more time to learn how to use it productively.

Source: EMERGIC.org

XML That Smells

A Spanish university researcher claims to have developed an XML language that can transmit smells. The code (dubbed "XML Smell") would command a "smell palate" on a PC, mobile phone or other device to emit a specific odor at a given time.

At first blush, the idea sounds ridiculous. One might even smell a rat (rimshot, please!) We can only imagine what some smart-alecky 10-year-olds would do with this on their blogs and websites, after all. But the concept of transmitting smells electronically has practical applications. Devices are in the works that would, for example, detect gas leaks and other toxic odors, measure air pollution, or help prevent social embarassment by warning the owner of bad breath and other offensive body odor.

Source: Textually.org

End of the Usenet Era?

One of the saddest spectacles in the history of the Internet has been the slow, steady decline of Usenet newsgroups. Once the go-to place for vibrant online discussions, Usenet was the forum of choice for old-school netizens long before the Web became commonplace. Back in my freelance writing days, Usenet was an essential tool for article research, generating leads and snagging interviews with knowlegeable people. Then, when I began programming, newsgroups became indispensable for helping to answer those tough coding questions.

But like a once-thriving city that has been reduced to a slum, Usenet is now a shadow of its old self, the victim of spam and other forms of abuse. It may well be for this reason that AOL will drop its newsgroup service in February. This, combined with legal challenges to ISPs for carrying newsgroups containing child pornography, competition from proprietary group systems such as Yahoo! Groups, and loss of Usenet support from other providers, may spell the end of Usenet as a viable Internet service.

AOL users, however, will still be able to access newsgroups through independent services such as Google Groups.

Sources: Spam King Blog, Techdirt

Roughing It In 1992

To many of us, 1992 doesn't seem like all that long ago. But then we watch a retrospective like VH1's I Love The '90s that brings back memories, and we start to see the disconnects between then and now.

Now, an essay in the New Yorker illustrates how much times have changed by profiling a family who, as part of one of the children's class project, lived like the typical family would have in 1992. Hardly sounds like roughing it, but that meant no cell phones, no DVDs, no text messaging, no iPods, no TiVo and no Internet. It also meant rediscovering vintage technologies like newspapers and VCRs. For kids and parents alike, it was a real challenge... and a real eye-opener.

UPDATE: The New Yorker article is available here, and a comprehensive discussion of the essay is available here.

Granted, the differences the essay focuses on are technologies that many might regard as optional, but the difficulties this family encounters in giving them up illustrate how deeply these technologies have ingrained themselved into our daily lives, and how important they really have become. It also makes one wonder how different our lives will be in a decade, simply based on new technology.

Sources: The Shifted Librarian, Techdirt

It's 5 PM... Do You Know Where Your Laptop Is?

One of the byproducts of mobile computing is the near-epidemic of misplaced laptops, cell phones and other mobile devices. One recent survey of taxis around the world found that cab passengers left behind over 11,000 laptops, 31,000 PDAs and 200,000 cell phones over the last six months.

Although the survey found that most of the devices were returned to their rightful owners, lost mobile devices pose serious security threats both to business and individuals. The issue will become even more important as mobile device become increasingly common. Ford Motor Company is doing its part to accellerate the trend, as it has replaced desk phones of 8,000 employees with Sprint PCS mobile phones.

Sources: CNN/Money, Techdirt

More Evidence of US Politcal, Religious Polarization

If the outcome of the 2004 presidential election wasn't enough evidence of our deep political divide, a survey by a group called Public Agenda has found that churchgoers have become more rigid in their beliefs concerning such issues as abortion and gay rights, and less tolerant of compromise. Reasons for this range from a feeling of persecution among those surveyed (most all Christians) to a new boldness in advancing and defending a religious political agenda.

Assuming this trend continues, we can look forward to ever more intense political and social conflicts -- and less incentive for politicians to compromise and actually get things done. Conflict will likely spill over into areas that used to be largely apolitical, such as science and technology, leading to new, creative (and ultimately counterproductive) forms of divisiveness.

UPDATE: We saw some evidence of this new divisiveness in Hollywood this week, when the Academy Award nominations were announced. Some conservatives were upset that The Passion of the Christ wasn't nominated for major award categories, and took it as evidence of liberal bias in show business. However, the very liberally-slanted Fahrenheit 9/11 was snubbed even more completely.

Source: Boston.com

Pondering Unintended Consequences

One of the biggest challenges for futurists is trying to forecast unintended consequences of technologies and trends. It's easy enough to speculate on how a certain technology or innovation will affect the future, but time rarely travels that linearly. More typically, unseen events, people and other factors interact with the innovation to affect its outcome for better or worse.

The UK IT journal The Register has an interesting piece on the history of unintended consequences, illustrating how supposedly minor and harmless decisions can have dramatic, often catastrophic outcomes years later. For example, the article highlights the US decision to sell the Shah of Iran high-quality printing presses for producing paper currency in the 1970s. No harm done there, right? Well, fast-forward about 20 years, when the Mideast became flooded with counterfeit $100 US bills. The culprit was Iran, now in the hands of anti-American Islamic revolutionaries... and the bogus currency was being used to, among other things, finance terrorist activities.

The article offers sage advice for futurists:

The law of unexpected consequences is one that we simply can't afford to forget, and even though they're impossible to adequately plan for, we can minimize their effects. We have to worry about it, and we have to always ask the hard question: given this new thing foo, what are all the possible results that could happen? Brainstorm. Think out of the box. Don't be afraid to consider whatever crazy idea pops into your head. Trust me: it's never crazy enough.

The piece summarizes with an observation that so many people in the UK are taking Prozac that traces of it are showing up in the water supply. If that's happening, could that be the case with other drugs? Narcotics? Viagra!?!? Now that's an unintended consequence to ponder!

CT Body Scans: The Emerging Medical Trend That Wasn't

Several years ago, CT body scans were all the rage. The idea that a patient could get his or her entire body imaged in one process, and find out about any problems early, seemed like the future of medicine.

Today, though, interest in body scanning seems to have ebbed, and those clinics that haven't yet closed are fighting for survival. What went wrong? Mostly, patients didn't feel like shelling out $500 to $1,000 -- which usually wasn't reimbursed by insurers -- for the service. It also didn't help that professional medical societies advised against the procedure, claiming the scans weren't conclusive enough to detect and diagnose anything meaningful.

The rapid rise and fall of the CT body scanning business points to the limits of consumer-driven healthcare, which many argue is the wave of the future in health. In consumer-driven healthcare, patients control their healthcare decisions -- including the money spent on their care -- with doctors relegated to an advisory role. One of the characteristics (and maybe problems) of CT body scanning services is that they disintermediate the physician from the process. The patient goes to the CT clinic independently, and receives the results directly. Perhaps one disincentive to getting a body scan is that patients want their doctors' involvement... and when they discuss it, their doctors discourage them from getting a scan.

Perhaps CT body scanning is simply a technology that's ahead of its time. But the collapse of the business model should provide valuable lessons and warnings to anyone pursuing opportunities in consumer-driven healthcare.

Source: The Health Care Blog, The New York Times

US Stem Cell Lines Contaminated?

Several news organizations are reporting that most if not all of the human embryonic stem cell lines that are available for US researchers are contaminated with nonhuman molecules. If this is accurate, it could pose a particular problem for US biotech leadership, as the Bush administration has denined federal funding for additional human embryonic stem cell harvesting. This could up the up the ante for states, notably California and New Jersey, that are seeking to fund their own stem cell initiatives. It could also reignite the general stem cell debate in the US, which would undoubtedly take on a different tone in the post-election environment.

Sources: Wired, Slashdot

The Once and Future TV

As you're surely aware, the big news story over the past 24 hours -- other than the weather and the football playoffs -- has been the death of legendary late-night talk show host Johnny Carson.

When Carson retired from hosting The Tonight Show in 1992, it marked the end of an era in TV entertainment. Now, we're pondering television's very future. The Long Tail blog discusses several emerging Internet-based TV outlets, and how Internet technology, better blogging/podcasting/videocasting capabilities, digital video recording and mass amateurization, will change TV entertainment. David Bollier of Onthecommons.org calls the phenomenon "Make-Your-Own Culture." In a sense, it's an ironic throwback to the days when Johnny Carson hosted a no-budget 15-minute show called Carson's Cellar in Lincoln, Nebraska in the early days of TV... years before he became a cultural icon. Could another Johnny Carson emerge from a TV source that doesn't yet exist? Or was Carson a figure who was unique to his era?

Added to the mix is news of the resignation of FCC chairman Michael Powell. Best known for his involvement in the Janet Jackson "wardrobe malfunction" and other decency issues, Powell presided over an agency that was at a crossroads of regulation issues. The decisions that Powell's successor makes regarding media conglomerates, VoIP, Wi-Fi and fiber optic networks will have an enormous impact on the future of TV, both in terms of technology and content. Where the Internet will be able to fill any voids or offer alternative "programming" remains to be seen.

Sources: CNN.com, C|Net, EMERGIC.org

Tide Coldwater Challenge: A New Twist on Internet Marketing

Marketing soaps and detergents is about as old as American capitalism itself. And as the first true heavy-duty laundry detergent, Tide has been a ground-breaking product ever since its introduction in 1946. But Proctor & Gamble has yet again managed to put a new spin on product introduction with its new variety of Tide, Tide Coldwater. They're using the Internet to promote it... but doing so with a difference.

P&G is linking Tide Coldwater to an energy-saving initiative -- as the product is designed to clean clothes better in cold water (hence the name!) -- and a campaign to help low-income Americans with their energy bills. Through the Tide Coldwater website, consumers are invited to sign up to receive a free sample of the product... and by adding their ZIP Code, they are added to an interactive map of the US that shows how many people have similarly responded.

Those who have signed up can similarly recruit their friends, thereby helping to spread the word about Tide Coldwater through social networking. At the site itself explains:

The ColdWater Challenge Map utilizes a new system that facilitates web-based sign-ups and social networking. This interactive map of the United States illustrates the diffusion of the ColdWater Challenge by tracking the spread of forwarded emails, highlighting the "six degrees of separation" between consumers who have accepted the challenge.

By recording each person that participates, and who he or she has invited or emailed, the system is able to calculate and display the actual impact of every individual. By allowing people to track their own impact on a cause, the ColdWater Challenge Map helps prove that one person can make a difference.

Currently, the map shows that the Challenge has spread pretty thoroughly throughout the eastern half of the US and along the West Coast, but not so much in the West.

Whether or not the ColdWater Challenge can really make a difference in energy conservation, or in selling the product, remains to be seen. Depending on its success, the campaign could take Internet marketing to a new level, or just be dismissed as another geeky gimmick. At any rate, P&G deserves an "A for effort" in using the Web for marketing in a new and creative way.

Source: Future Now

Why Seniors Don't Go Online Now, But Will in the Future

We've written before about the lack of senior citizens in cyberspace, and have speculated as to why this is. Now, two new studies both confirm the dearth of seniors online and offer some insights as to why they're in no rush to go there.

The first, from the Kaiser Family Foundation, found that just over 30% of American seniors (age 65+) surveyed have ever been online. However, 70% of what the report calls the "next generation of seniors" (those aged 50-64) have been online. The report goes on to point out dramatic differences in Internet usage between the two generations, particularly when searching for health information.

The second, from the Pew Internet & American Life Project last March, corroborates those findings. Pew found that only 22% of American seniors go online, but 58% of those aged 50-64 do so. However, the report found that those who do go online are just as enthusiastic about it as their younger counterparts. The Pew report calls those aged 50-64 the "silver tsunami" (a phrase they probably wouldn't use if the report were being written today), and also speculates as to why those aged 65+ don't participate in cyberspace more:

[M]ost seniors live lives far removed from the Internet, know few people who use e-mail or surf the Web, and cannot imagine why they would spend money and time learning how to use a computer. Seniors are also more likely than any other age group to be living with some kind of disability, which could hinder their capacity to get to a computer training center or read the small type on many Web sites.

Commenting on the Pew report, blogger Lois Ambash adds her own interpretation:

Younger adults readily concur that no one would tolerate a high-maintenance refrigerator, telephone, or even VCR. Most people have neither the time nor the interest to pamper machines as erratic, complex, and unreliable as the average personal computer. The incentives to develop fluency in the use of Internet and computer technologies often come in the form of job requirements, paychecks and promotions.

From this perspective, the precipitous drop in Internet use among people over 65 takes on a different cast. Are the over-65s too incurious, intellectually limited, or set in their ways to embrace electronic technologies? Instead, consider a less condescending explanation: These seniors may have attained a maturity level and sense of self that lets them comfortably say no to unfriendly machines. Poorly-designed controls, ever-changing screen images, counterintuitive navigation, and incomprehensible documentation may just not command their time and attention. In other words, the decision to steer clear of new technologies may reflect rational choice, rather than ignorance or impatience.

Those aged 50-64 -- the eldest Baby Boomers -- are largely still in the workf