Tom Murphy - Notes

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I am writing about what I learned from a recent trip to Africa and how some of those lessons may relate to how things have changed since FIR’s inception and how things may look in the future. I think it was an idea that came up in discussion between Neville and Shel (A Shelvillian discussion?) on a previous edition of FIR about commemorating, if that’s the word, the demi-mille edition.

I don’t think it is possible or even wise to try and predict what applications may suddenly arise from a twinkle in some innovator’s eye to being an essential must-have in the next few years or even months.

Who would have predicted the seeming omniscience of Twitter or Facebook just a few years ago? I confess that even as late as January this year I was completely unconvinced that Twitter would have any role in my life. That attitude certainly changed.

I remember a short while ago the many conversations taking place about Web 2.0. They reflected the expectation that in some way Web 2.0 would be like the previous incarnation of the web - the same but better. In fact Web 2.0 turned out to be the social media explosion and the future turned out to be unlike anything anyone ever guessed or predicted.

So predicting web 3.0 or whatever future manifestation of the web is strictly for the brave and the foolish. It is probably best left to those amongst who are willing to put their money where there mouth is.

But there are definitely two consistent trends which do seem to carry the weight of the future in their hands.

One is the inevitability of an always-on culture where people have a permanent connection to the internet throughout the daily activities of their lives. And because people move around this leads on to the mobile smartphone becoming the primary tool for accessing the web.

It seems obvious but I have the distinct sense that even in its nascent stages this amazing ability to access the internet and its cornucopia of wonders on what seems like a whim is already being taken for granted. It is such an everyday phenomena for many of your listeners that the significance of only just having started and having some way to go has faded or been lost.

I have just returned from a long trip that covered a number of African countries ended up in some pretty remote spots. Internet connections are sparse and unreliable even in built up areas and while I did at one point go for a few days without any connection at all I managed to survive. However, there’s a big difference between choosing to go off the grid or not being able to access the internet and not being able to do so at all.

It struck me quite forcibly how much of my life while not dependent on internet access in the absolute sense is highly reliant on it being available when I do want access. Not being able to use Skype and having to pay exorbitant local mobile phone charges was just one of the many issues that we had. None of them stopped us doing what we were supposed to be doing but the absence of good quality stable connection did add unexpected layers of difficulty, expense and complication.

I say stable because apart from the few days when we were really out of touch there was always some sort of internet link to be had. It just didn’t work very well.

Back at our home, our offices or workplace and on our phones we nearly always have some access. (I don’t want to make distinction between where I was and where I normally reside by using Western World and Developing world labels. They can be very misleading and unhelpful but I would like the listener to assume that I refer to my normal internet access state as a place with a soundly working infrastructure.)

This always-on aspect to our cultural, business and domestic lives has grown increasingly since the inception of FIR and is of no surprise to listeners. But until its enforced absence I was surprised at the extent of my reliance on quick and easy access to the internet.

On our recent African trip is the absolute necessity of a mobile phone was evident all around us.. They were everywhere. Telephony costs are high and most people seemed to be on PAYG sims and texting was the main form of communication.

It is quite conceivable that as cell links improve most folks in regions outside the main communication hubs will skip the laptop and desktop computer and do all their internet exchanges on their mobile phones.

Cost of course is the big inhibitor but portability and convenience are the main drivers.

In my always-on world a smartphone is something useful to have on the train or in the pub between my main communication nodes at home or in the office. For many people around the world the smartphone will be their primary and continuous access to the internet once the infrastructure is in place.

So these are my predictions; always-on is the way it is going and smartphones will rule the world. Neither conclusion is the least bit earth shattering but it is only in their absence that that their necessity and essentialness becomes very apparent.

Also as a footnote in my travels this year I have noticed wherever I have been the absolute predominance of Facebook over pretty much anything else on the web.

I have observed people using Facebook in internet cafes, airport lounges, hotel business centres and lobbies. Also, not very admirably, from surreptitious glances at what was being displayed on other people’s mobile phones. Not terribly scientific, I know, but I think many others would come up with similar sets of observations.

It wasn’t until my recent trip that I had some clue as to why that might be. I know there’s a reams of research about user preferences for social media and that comparing Twitter to Facebook is like comparing apples and oranges but I would suggest that there is a much more prosaic reason for Facebook’s predominance. Facebook works on even the dodgiest connection.

I don’t know what the web engineering consists of at Facebook but when using broadband connections at very near old dial-up speeds in far off places Facebook delivers and Twitter is just about impossible to use.

Most of the world does not have a very good internet connection. People being people are going to go with what works for them. As internet infrastructure improves they will stick with what they know and for the lack of anything else Facebook will rule the world. But that’s not really a prediction, just a statement of the obvious.

Yours Sincerely,

Tom Murphy

@tom_murphy
friendfeed: tomie

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By any standards I am not a big player on twitter. Out of the followers and followed I don't think there is more than ten, twenty max, people that I regularly interact with. I retweet when I can and use bitly to shorten my links when I tweet myself. One of the interesting things about bitly is that it gives information on how many people clicked on my link. It acts as a rough and ready interest meter.
 
Most of my tweets generate between ten and twenty click throughs. I don't think it has ever gone beyond thirty. The subject matter of the links varies with my interests. Some are clearly have a greater broader interest than others. However, the one subject that almost invariably receives no interest is the tweeting around the hardships that journalists face in hostile environments. The sort of environments that I specialize in. (Less and less so these days.)
 
I can't imagine that it's indifference. It is clear from the tweets of followed and follower alike that there is a great deal of awareness and good sense present. I think it is more that this sort of lifestyle is so outside of most people's ken that it just fails to trigger a response.
 
Regardless, I shall still carry on tweeting links to these sort of stories because I care.

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Yesterday at Spiddal harbour a most beautiful rainbow appeared seeming to straddle Galway Bay. Instinctively, I reached for my camera but remembered that it had gone walkies in Kuwait and the phone I have here doesn't have a built-in camera.

 So I had to resort to just looking at the rainbow - watching it intensify and fade- and enjoyed myself immensely. Normally, I would have been concerning myself with exposure and framing issues and attempting to create some sort of defining image but it was a relief to not bother with any of that at all and just sit there and enjoy the spectacle.

 It's great to be able to instantly archive our lives but sometimes it is just great to enjoy things for what they are without an interloping digital barrier.

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