Jeff Jarvis at VON

I sat down on the front row as I always do at conferences  so I can see emotion on faces. By the way I am at VON, Video on the Net, new to me. Next to me is a tall thin man in a gray suit. “Hi, I’m Jeff Jarvis, blogger.” So noted. Later that afternoon this fellow presents a media manifesto. I was stunned. Many of the ideas reminded me of what I felt when I taught the Marshall McLuhan class for digital artists in San Francisco. I had Eric McLuhan down and we probed the ultimate nature of digital media. But Jarvis was new, declarative and very sure about what pots need be stirred to realize IP media as it comes forth from the other end of broadcasting. Certainty conflicts with Art appreciation, so I hope he cuts his students some slack when they study media.

When I realized what he stood for, I wanted to open a new channel on mobile IP media. How 4G will complete the wireless internet – media with legs, mobile senses and the mobile arts.  For mobile IP will be a more disruptioin than vlogs are to broadcast distribution. The key difference is this. Broadcast towers speak; cellular towers listen.

The  premiere media blogger summed up the modern Internet media making audience succinctly – “Content is not a finished thing until it is part of the conversation”. Or even better.

If you give people control they will use it.

If you don’t you lose them. – Jeff Jarvis

Retro Corporate Motivation

Saw this motivation banner at Sprint this week.  If you don’t have a picture display it reads “Squash the Competition Like the Little Bugs They Are”. As a visitor, who is also a competitor working on common agreements, it is wise to explain to Sprint employees that you are a vendor not a competitor, lest the great boot fall from the sky. Very cold-war 1984.

4G

So what is 4G? Wireless Internet, pure digital, pure packets, pure IP, and on the go. Whereas 3G cellular mixed circuit-switched voice with various digital data protocols, 4G is pure digital. 4G=IP everywhere. 

The G business is owned by carriers, but beginning with 4G they fully acknowledge IP and the Internet. They show WiFi as the stationary boat anchor that it is. On one hand. On the other they have to roam in and out of WiFi space only 100 Khz away. WiFi beautifully connects the world brain in its pure digital format over the Internet which by defintion is everyone’s computer connected. Transient roaming will travel between billing models, between the always free and the always paid. 3G has begun and 4G completes the total liberation of Internet content for the sending and the sent. 4G heralds the age where the station will meet the server. And it will neccesarily force the DOJ to overule the FCC to change law regarding the public interest.

In Time – 4G will arrive in the mainstream in 2010. The rule of G’s is that each wireless cellular generation principally runs 10 years. Our era of 3G is from 2000 – 2010.

Effects of the new media – 4G increases the frequency of production and consumption. 4G tightens the feedback loop making the world or challenge and response smaller still. 4G gets to real touch. In the digital nowness of all mediating devices, there is still need of of the artful edit to save us time and save us space.  5G is multispectral but that is another story.

IPID

Welcome to ipid, my first post. Identity through IP. 

Blogging is the open book quiz on yourself. I began writing this after Jeff Jarvis presented a reason to do so at the VON conference Sept 13 2006

Of all the web site topologies, the blog uses the single time line. Upon this line hangs any possible comment by any person in the world. Authors return to their blog base with new thoughts and emotional responses much of which is As Seen on the Internet.  Others on the Internet see this too.  If your humor, truth, and illumination connect, they will respond. Above all truth. As blogger you interprete and continue conversation from within the your main narrative line centered on the screen.

Emotional not rational impulses are the fuel of blogs. Our larger brains evolved for their interconnected emotional, not rational features (Dr. Cytowik’s incredible conclusion after studying synesthasia). Blogs tap first on feeling. Sense of humor helps, but truth rules on the Internet. Id Tenendum Verum- keep it real – as the apron of the Bill Maher TV set declares. (Go sometime – it’s in LA and free.) If  you don’t have the dicipline to see reality and courage to translate its truth, then tell a joke. Play the fool. A laugh is better than a lie. Lies are daringly broadcast to a public at large through a slanted institutional mask, but for many stories telegraphed to us by the Internet hours before, we know better. When IP is everywhere, the virtue of identity reigns. So when I see a news anchor telling me the way it is, I play incredulous Robert De Niro jesting - “Are you talking to me? Are you talking to ME?”

The shift from electronic media to digital media produces identity. Digital identity embodies presence. IP Presence. Presence in IM means more than showing you are away or online. You can show location, environment, and action – what’s in the margin of our cellular conversations. Digital character can be improved by the IP arts of writing, speaking, and video to inspire others. Digital identity challenges us to have something to say and think about how people here it. We perform a media dance to underscore the emotional value of the message.

IP identity is becoming highly mobile.  GPS added with time generates an invisible and important dimension to the fantasy stage of our persona.

Identity is voice.