Sites like Smashing Magazine are always releasing free icon sets. However, I wanted to make something custom for OakHazelnut.com. With this in mind, created the following icon set for my Twitter, Flickr and RSS profiles.

Download Icon Set .eps

The set is free to download and free to use. However, if you use the icons in a commercial project or on a client site, please link back to http://oakhazelnut.com somewhere on the site. A big thanks to Bram Pitoyo for helping out with the shading. Enjoy and happy socializing!

——–

Amber Case is a Cyborg Anthropologist and Internet Marketing Consultant from Portland, Oregon. You can follow her online @caseorganic.

People are searching for things all the time on the web. If you’re a blogger looking to write good content, it is a good idea to get out there on the net to find what people are searching for. There are a few tools for doing this, but I wanted to isolate one of them and play with it for a minute.

@marknunney posted a link on Twitter about a “new tool from Wordtracker for content ideas”, so I clicked over to the site and read the following:

“People often type complete questions into search engines: if you find these questions and answer them, you could get some great search traffic”.

Below it was a box for entering in a word, so I tried a few words out. The results were amusing enough for me to want to share them. Further analysis follows.

Results for Life

I found the results for the word ‘life’ to be what one might expect. Right now, people are wondering about life insurance. However, the ‘color of life in ancient egypt’ is something that is phrased in such as strange way that it could warrant further research — especially since it was looked up 156 times. At #6, ‘what is the meaning of life’ is asked. I guess life insurance and ‘how time of my life was chosen for american idol’ were more important.

My personal favorite is #13 — ‘how to summon a real life dragon’. I bet if someone were to write a post on that, they’d get lots of hits. Maybe lots of Diggs too. I’m not sure how I’d go about researching that one. It’s probably better than trying to write a post on #8 — ‘how to ruin someone’s life’.

Results for E-mail

How does E-mail work? Apparently people are asking this question. But there is an important trend happening elsewhere in these question results. That would be the address of one (or rather two) ‘cole sprouse’. They happen to be identical twins, and are, according to the Cole Sprouse Wikipedia article, “known for their roles in the film Big Daddy…and for portraying the title characters on Disney Channel sitcoms”. Good luck finding their E-mail address, as well as the address of Prince Harry, Zac Efron and Jamie Spears.

But you can write about how to E-mail pictures, or #9’s ‘who invented E-mail’. That one actually seems particulary interesting. The narrative histories of everyday things are always a joy to read about.

Results for Business

‘How to write a business plan?’ Can’t one just download a template from Microsoft Word or something? That question is really a broad one. It depends on what kind of business one wishes to start. #3’s ‘how to start a cell phone business’ is pretty good. #10’s ‘what is the best business opportunity’ is a really intense question that cannot totally be answered. #11’s ‘how to start a web design business’ is actually very answerable by a variety of sources such as Design Float and Smashing Magazine.

#8’s ‘how to start a business with no money’ is interesting. I think it’s never been easier — and more difficult. It’s probably time that’s the big issue. Taking a lot of time really works. A cell phone business might manifest as an online reseller of cell phone accessories.

Results for Google

I was confused by these search results. I didn’t think they’d be this broad, or this ill-informed. Are Google founders Larry and Sergey that obscure? I wonder what sources Wordtracker is using for its search queries.

It might also be interesting to create a post on the founders of Google just to see what happened to it. I’m sure Wikipedia and Google have this question answered already.

Results for Yahoo

I queried Yahoo! just to see what would happen. Very similar to Google’s results, except there was a question of what Yahoo stood for. I’m actually wondering that myself right now (goes off to find the answer).

The answer as to what Yahoo! stands for comes from About.com’s ‘Internet for Beginners’. The answer is that “Yahoo! (spelled with an exclamation mark) is short for “Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle”. Apparently, “The original name: “David’s and Jerry’s Guide to the World Wide Web”, was appropriate, but not exactly catchy“. You can read the rest of Paul Gil’s Yahoo! article for the whole story.

Results for Money

The search results for money really surprised me. I had no idea that so many people wanted to know about ‘what presidents are on money’. I wonder what demographic asks this question the most. Is it youth? Is it due to a bet? Is it a homework assignment? Perhaps it is to clarify the use of slang words.

#2 and #3’s ‘how much money does it cost to open a bar’, and ‘how can kids make money’ are interesting. I’m wondering if more kids than parents searched for that phrase and if there a way to tell. As for #2, a lot of people seem to dream of owning and running their own bars.

I thought that #7’s ‘how to make money’ would be higher up on the results than that, but apparently the presidents on money trumps that. It’s also a much easier niche to write for than the seedy ‘how to make money’ post. #8 and #9’s ‘millionaires who give money to help’, and ‘millionaires who give free money’ make a lot of sense. Those questions make me wonder how many millionaires out there actually give money out to strangers who ask for it over the Internet. Generally, processes and charities are involved. Darn! Perhaps Google or a blogger will write about another way?

Results for Puppy

Puppies. They’re somewhat irresistible. So irresistible that a lot of people question just how large they’re going to get, apparently. It would be useful to make a site that gave information on how large any breed of puppy was going to grow. It would be complete with a puppy weight calculator, to answer question #3 as well. One would simply have to enter in the breed and the age of the puppy and the Internet robots would do the rest. Hooray for calculators.

I wonder how many new pet owners typed in #7 after watching their new puppy pee on their freshly installed carpet? Is there any way to tell? Perhaps they should’ve just stuck to drawing a puppy instead of owning one, like those who searched for #4’s ‘how to draw a puppy’.

Results for Read

This was wild. I did not expect to get results on horoscopes, tarot cards or reading palms. I’m not sure what I expected originally, but it wasn’t this. I thought people liked books more than daily horoscopes. My college experience has given me some explaination for these results. Everyone in my dorm was obsessed with reading their horoscopes to each other. Some of them even printed out astrological charts. I didn’t participate.

But result #6 makes a lot of sense in this respect. Aside from horoscopes, ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ is one of those books that’s assigned to the majority of school districts across the United States. I’m assuming a lot of kids didn’t want to purchase the book, lent it to someone else, forgot it at home or at school, or were looking for a quick way to read a chapter before an annoying quiz after lunch or homeroom period.

Results for RSS

What *is* RSS? Oh man. It is probably the greatest thing since the last iteration of really cool stuff that people enjoyed. It allows the quick and easy access of content without having to browse for it. I recommend watching RSS in Plain English instead of searching for RSS in Google. It’s an extremely short video by the Common Craft show. Totally sweetopian.

Hmm…#13’s ‘how do i find my twitter rss fed url’ is curious. Not only is fed spelled incorrectly, it is searched for 7 times. I’m sure there’s a great tutorial on this out there somewhere. …Or is there? I suppose that’ for random people to find out.

Results for SEO

These were not surprising. ‘What does seo stand for?’ Search engine optimization, of course. How does one ‘become a certified seo?’ Well gee whiz, that’s a hard one. Probably from showing it on your own site, and the sites of your clients. And by not selling links from bad sites. Also, by educating people thoughly about your techniques.

‘How to set up seo?’ Go through a standard checklist on your website, checking for alt tags, title tags, a sitemap, ect. I like the free Website Grader from HubSpot for a really quick website check and grade.

Results for Six

I wondered about numbers next, so I checked out an the number six. Purely arbitrary (by arbichance? arbitration?). I was amused to find such a long phrase at the top of the question results. ‘The six basic fears and how to eliminate them’. That is totally a book by Sharry Harris. #2’s ‘what are the six terms of geography’ totally sounds like a query taken directly from a homework assignment.

#3’s ‘what are the six parts in a business letter’ has reminded me to re-examine my business letters for the correct number of parts. Perhaps I can do that while developing a six pack while using Six Sigma techniques.

Results for Twitter

‘What is Twitter?’ Ahh…if only there were an easy way to explain that. ‘How to use twitter’ is even more complicated. See, it is the emptiness of a vessel that gives it use-value, and Twitter is an empty vessel. The question of ‘What are you doing’ is never fully answered. Thus, how to use Twitter is like telling someone how to use a vase. The emptiness gives it many uses, whereas a tutorial can only give a finite amount of use-cases.

Finding the Twitter RSS feed URL is another matter. Simply scroll down to the bottom left corner of your Twitter page and click on RSS. Or you can right click to ‘copy the address’ to place it elsewhere with ease.

Results for Unicorn

So Unicorns are very important to the state of the world. They give us a fantastic antithesis with which to view things. I assumed that I would get different results because of this mindset, but I did not. The number one search for unicorn relates to finding free Unicorn pictures to color. That is a total let-down.

I guess people are interested in drawing Unicorns, though. Perhaps they’ll make some awesome viral Unicorn videos when they get older. Like Charlie the Unicorn.

Final Verdict

WordTracker’s new tool is pretty fun, but I’m not sure how terribly useful it really is. I think you’re the judge for that.

————-

Amber Case is a Cyborg Anthropologist and Internet Marketing Consultant from Portland, Oregon. You can follow her online @caseorganic.

During my last semester of college, I became obsessed with the idea that I would be able to somehow put my degree in sociology/anthropology to work in the real world. When I stumbled upon search engine optimization, I was elated. When I learned that Cyborg Anthropology applied there as well, I was even more excited. And when Todd Mintz encouraged me to write my first blog post ever on the SEM PDX blog, I was so nervous that I didn’t leave my friends house for 4 hours while I composed it.

Perfectionism was a difficult thing to get over. I gradually realized that I had to allow myself to suck in order to get anywhere. At Weiden+Kennedy, there’s a massive art piece on the wall that says “Fail Harder”. I knew I had to fail harder than ever before. Oakhazelnut.com was the silliest name for a website I could think of, and the early WordPress template I used was ugly, heavy and clunky. But I kept on it.

I also realized that I wasn’t going to have a community anymore when I graduated from college, so I searched hard for one in Portland. I attended meetups relating to pretty much everything until I found Legion of Tech and Beer and Blog. Some of the first people I ever met were Reid Beals, Bram Pitoyo, Dawn Foster and Rick Turoczy. It was the beginning of an exciting and busy journey into the heart of the tech scene. But it didn’t take long to get oriented. Everyone was filled with zest for their ideas, and it spread quickly to me. I began to take small risks and write more.

Up until now, I’ve been putting in 110 hour weeks trying to do anthropological studies, blogging (which as anyone who blogs knows — is much more difficult than it looks), attending events, and learning more about seo and Yahoo! Pipes. My learning curve is strange, so it has been a long process. I’ve been given great support from people who really know what they are doing. Focused, brilliant, fascinating people.

Now that I am blogging, writing and consulting full-time, I feel like I’ve been thrown directly into the open arms of the tech community. There’s more time for coffeeshops, events, and research now. I’m excited to be able to see more faces.

It was great to be able to walk into the local Backspace coffeeshop and get high fives from all of the great people there. Bram Pitoyo said, “welcome to the life of a Freelancer”. I wholeheartedly embrace it.

My last job was excellent, and I took it after graduating from college in May so that I would be able to learn a bunch of new skills. I learned so many new things I was ready to explode. Drupal was fun, E-mail marketing was great, and new seo tools were awesome. I look forward to how that company does in the future. It’s doing very well and has an excellent business model I was excited to learn more about.

Now I have time for CyborgCamp, MIT’s Futures of Entertainment Conference, Makerlab, Ignite Portland, Refresh Portland, blogging for the Discovery Channel at Nerdabout, AboutUs.org, Dorkbot, search engine optimization, Beer and Blog and of course, Cyborg Anthropology.

Thanks to Marshall Kirkpatrick for the Discovery Channel write-up on Read Write Web. Marshall has been a tremendous help to me. In addition to showing me things like Skitch, he’s lent advice and support to me on numerous occasions.

I want to thank everyone in the Portland Tech community, but there are infinite people to thank. Perhaps I can thank an entire directory of great Tweeple at once (via AboutUs.org Portland Tech Twitter).

I think that’s about it. I am a little speechless at the support I’ve been given, and I can’t wait to share it with a wider audience.

Sincerely,

@caseorganic

New marketing is the creation of events, experiences, content, products, and services in collaboration with the consumer. It is the creation of products and services that fill an actual need while creating a community that shares that need.

Google, Twitter and Facebook were initially created by people to fulfill a need. Google was created to manage information, Facebook demographics, data and connection, and Twitter, conversation. Software and hardware review sites emerged to protect consumers from false advertising. Blogs emerged because traditional corporations didn’t listen to their customers, leaving them to fend for themselves. Because of this, it’s much more difficult for traditional corporations to have a voice. It’s been drowned out by more valuable services. And the traditional communication channels have been severed.

In the new web there is no longer one platform to speak from. Social, economic, brand, and lifestyle realities are constantly fragmenting, reorganizing and combining in new ways. Products are easily adopted and easily thrown away online. Additionally, each culture is constantly creating its own dialect, and unless a business understands that dialect and is extremely diplomatic, an online community will be able to see right through a marketing campaign.

There are tools out there that can be used to dive deep into these content networks such as Facebook and Twitter to secure information. Consumers have the power - both to create and destroy. But they also have a very helpful voice, and it’s important to listen to them. Often, they can’t create the products, services, and experiences they need. But companies can, and consumers want to help.

Web vs. Brick

In the brick and mortar world, most businesses have a front door and a loading dock, as well as finite hours of operation. Web designers originally built websites in the same way. But a website is always open, and every page a front door. Thus, each and every page on a site counts. Each page is a representation of the entire company, and must hold its own if accessed out of order and context.
One might think of the Internet as a vast ocean of noise with islands of content on it. Search engine optimization is a process that can bring an island closer to land…often close enough so that visitors can walk onto it. Visitors will generally use a website as a solution if they don’t have to navigate an ocean to get to the data they need.

Search engines can bring in traffic, but there is no guarantee that the content on a site will match what the user searched for. This can be helped along by having a site display items similar to what the user searched for. For instance, Amazon.com and the New York Times both have related posts and products that appear on almost every page.

Interfaces

As more and more companies turn to online software solutions, user interfaces become increasingly important. This is especially true when online collaborative software is used across great distances.

To quote the Urban Planner Paul Elek,

“The point is that our daily existence is normally filled with short walks and passing through interfaces. It is not the number that we remember but rather the poor quality of them and the time spent in moving through them”.

A principle to follow in designing an online experience is the time and number of clicks it takes for visitors to access data. If there is no flow, no calls to action, and no relevant content, then the user will generally move on — and click “no”, or the “back” button.

Users will generally take a route with the least interface changes to fulfill their needs. A good interface blends into the background while maximizing relevant user actions. The interface should also compress together similar steps so that actions do not have to be repeated uselessly by the user. Flickr’s image uploader and title/descriptions fields do an excellent job of this.

A website should contain no unnecessary code, styles, or content. A speedskater has different muscles developed than does an tennis player. There is no “one social media strategy fits all”. A website’s content/structure/links should be developed according to the type of products/services it provides. Conversation, community building and ease of use minimize consumer effort and can be achieved in different ways. It is imperative to pay attention to what communities/demographics need the services/products a site provides. Which avenue is best to play in - is Twitter more appropriate than Flickr? Examining the social media sites a community is drawn to says a lot about how they interact the most comfortably.

The ratio of good vs. poor content online makes filtering necessary. A website can only stand out among the crowd if it offers new and consistently reliable content. Additionally, that content must be accessible by both humans and machines (search engines). The online landscape only allows consumer’s limited time to make decisions. In these kinds of environments, one must alway focus on data accessibility, calls to action, and extremely clear direction. Information that is buried too deep into the site’s structure is more difficult to get to, and runs the risk of not being indexed by search engines. Products should be focused on providing value.

PR 2.0

Some of the first industries to capture digital data real-time were hedge funds and other financial firms. They used something that I’ll call an intelligence dashboard — where different streams of data were needed to make complex decisions. The dashboard allowed users to see many different stocks at once, and companies were able to create a sort of proto-feed that showed many different ecosystems of data at once.

Data Mashups

Services like Netvibes and Yahoo! pipes can be mixed together to offer companies real-time intelligence feeds that show what their competitors are posting on their blogs, what people are saying about them on twitter, and their overall online presence — all in one place.

Making these intelligence dashboards takes time and research, but the value added (not to mention the time saved) by the implementation of a centralized data source is immense. Also, it’s powerful enough for agencies that manage multiple clients, because the entire system fits into one browser window with a series of custom, labeled tabs.

All brands have an analog version of this, and some have a digital one — but all brands need it. Google Alerts is a quick and Intelligence dashboards are capable of handling the data generated by global and local brands as well. They can monitor Flickr photos, news items, blog posts, ect. Anything online, and anything in motion. Companies who do not monitor their own brands run the risk of their brands

Community

A websites’ user base should be voluntary - it should be providing a comfortable nesting ground for user actions. Youtube allows its users the space for their communities to interact, and does not force them to interact in a specific way. New tools should be created to move forward the voluntary community’s ability to reach their goals. In doing this, the creator must be able to understand what the user’s needs are, and then help the user to get there step by step. Instead of major site redesigns, tools should be being found by the user during normal routine actions. This will allow the user to ‘discover’ that tool for themselves and then determine, over time, the best use of that tool.

Explicitly stated actions or rules for the user to follow are confining and dictatorial. Suggestions are better (See Tumblr - a user-based and created space to post quotes, pictures, and videos (a sort of microblog with media…but with less interconnectivity than Twitter). The database/user experience must expand more from the side of the users and the system must be mutable enough for the to move with the space of the user.

About

Amber Case is a Cyborg Anthropologist and New Media consultant living in Portland, Oregon. You can find her on Twitter @caseorganic, or may contact her via E-mail at caseorganic at gmail.com.

photo credit: Martin Pettitt

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I spent a wonderful morning at Maryellen Hockensmith’s Organic Farm. Before we went out to check out the garden, she gave me a bunch of wonderful tips on sustainability, growing your own organic garden, the usefulness of worms, high-yielding plants, and crop rotation.

I know what you’re thinking: Hazelnut Tech Talk is taking a break from tech to talk about gardening! Well, that’s somewhat true. It’s not often that our technosocial lives let us take in a beautiful view the countryside, or an enormous bite of a delicious tomato right off the vine. But what about connecting the two?

One of the reasons I wanted to do a podcast with Maryellen is that she is also an active member of Twitter @yogacowgirls, blogs at YogaCowgirls.com, and makes wonderful music.

So if you’re into food, organic crops, sustainability, yoga, Twitter, or Blogging (go WordPress!), then give Maryellen a warm hello. That is, if you don’t know about her already.

Hazelnut Tech Talk is a collaboration between Amber Case and Bram Pitoyo

Traditionally…

The traditional form of Anthropological study is stereotyped by outings to third world countries to study “the anthropological other”. However, I find it more challenging to study what’s happening to us as a series of technosocial a world mediated by dynamic objects, processes, and change. I first used cyborg anthropology to create an analysis of Facebook, as I was one of the first adopters of the platform. I later wrote my thesis on mobile telephony and the future of communication.

Donna Haraway, Deborah Heath and Robert Goldman

I was first introduced to cyborg anthropology by Deborah Heath, a friend of Donna Haraway’s. She was my professor and thesis advisor at Lewis & Clark college. I was also introduced to the concept of Light/Liquid Modernity by Robert Goldman, a sociology professor who specialized in advertising and sign culture. These two professors introduced me to a set of theories that I took immediately to my analysis of the real world. With Bob I studied traditional advertising from the 19th century, and afterwards,  advertising and business through postmodern theory.

The Digital Field Journal

I kept a digital journal during my last year of college that stored snapshots of the Internet. I used this platform to capture data over time in order to understand trends and patterns that worked their way into
conclusions. I also began to visit local businesses and network with corporate groups. Along the way, I began to realize that companies were fighting to understand social media and online presence through processes such as search engine optimization. Most of the marketers and company owners had extremely sophisticated profiles on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. I learned to embrace social networks from 30-50 year olds rather than from my peers. The methods of dispersing, collecting, and attracting people to data
and experience were completely new to me. I had only studied it from the context of an digital field journal before.

I realized very quickly that the qualitative and quantitative methods of anthropology were a perfect fit for cyberspace. These tools could be used to analyze the methods by which humans seek out and produce information in cyberspace. They could easily be used to improve and criticize interface design, user flows, data management, resource optimization, and the phenomenology of the online experience.

I used this new knowledge to secure a job in search engine marketing for a small startup company. This part time job guarantees a standard of living while I compile my research on the compression of time and space online, and the types of businesses that can survive in the digital jungle.

Conducting Research in Zero Gravity, Zero Friction Environment

The research is different than any I’ve ever done before. It is both simple and difficult with respect to traditional research. First, data collection is no problem. Humans are leaving a sort of geological history of themselves with every action they create online. Data management is becoming a series of lists, where things are new to old, or “most viewed” to “least viewed”. Old information sinks to the bottom of the data pile, but sometimes is dug up by future visitors, or data Paleontologists. Neglected or stale data is ignored and quickly buried by successive layers of data with a faster refresh rate. This is evident on Twitter, RSS readers, Facebook, YouTube and almost any new media platform in existence. It is also true on search engines like Google and Yahoo. Google Analytics can be easily used to track conversion rates and page views.

Some Limitations of Data Management

But data management needs certain tools or it becomes overwhelming. My own foray into social media caused me to rely on new tools to understand and soft through all of the data my profile and conversations was generating. I realized recently that this is PR 2.0. I now help companies understand and expand their online presence through intelligence feeds created through Yahoo! Pipes. The Yahoo! Pipe application I use takes relevant data from one site and relevant data from another and collects it into a single data feed. In this way, streams of relevant data can be created, instead of sorting through endless amounts of information that does not directly relate to one or one’s goals.

Another question comes up when this subject is accessed — the question of value and how it is created online. I’m studying the different patterns and ways value can be created online, and the natural systems that these values mirror.

The Construction of Value in an Age of Instant Duplication

For instance, what makes one link on Twitter is more valuable that another? What makes one’s Tweets are seen by thousands of people, while another’s Tweets are seen by 15. This is post-art in the age of mechanical reproduction. This is a world in which everything is infinitely reproducible. Disney’s Club Penguin has successfully harnessed this by implementing artificial scarcity in a controlled, secure environment. A
cyberspace within a cyberspace with its own rules. Facebook took another route. It’s story closely mirrors that of an early gold rush. The construction of value within that environment was tumorous. Too many of the
same application reduced the value of each application to near-zero levels.

Add Twitter

I chose Twitter as a social media platform of choice because it offers a sort of ‘omnipresence in the wired’ that other websites don’t. Twitter’s data is constantly flowing, while the text of most webpages and even blogs are still caught up in silos and behind opaque walls. This is where liquid modernity comes into play. Old industry is heavy and takes a long time to move. Light industry works best in frictionless environments. RSS feeds make data dynamic and accessible. Every page on a site can be a front door to content without the time liability that an extra click creates for a user trying to find the correct content. Networks that shorten the distance between content an action while reducing unnecessary and awkward interface transitions are generally more successful online than those that do not. To quote a student of Donna Haraway’s:

To ‘go virtual’ is to free the self from the weight of the flesh incarcerated by ‘heavy modernity’. Cyber Ethnologist Sandy Stone discusses the theoretical benefits of joining virtual communities:

Electronic virtual communities represent flexible, lively, and practical
adaptations to the real circumstances that confront persons seeking
community in what Haraway (1987) refers to as ‘the mythic time called
the late twentieth century.” They are part of a range of innovative
solutions to the drive for sociality—a drive that can be frequently thwarted
by the geographical and cultural realities of cities increasingly structured
according to the needs of powerful economic interests rather than in ways
that encourage and facilitate habitation and social interaction in the urban
context (Benedikt in Cyberspace, First Steps 1991: 111).

At a long dinner table, the person at the head of the table is physically distant from the person at the other end of the table. But online, everyone at the table can be the same distance apart. A 301 redirect can easily change an entire highway of traffic from one website location to another, while the brick and mortar manifestation of this concept involves bulldozers, urban planners, and millions of dollars.

There’s also the development of online communities as a recolonization of public space. As anthropological places create the organically social, so non-places create solitary contractility (Augé Non-Places: An Introduction to a Theory of Supermodernity 1995:94). Non-places are the sources of modern anomie. In Emelie Durkheim’s perspective, a malnourished public sphere deprives individuals of real social connections. In the face of this anomie, technosocial relationships mediated through the cell phone or social network allows an organic social network. Through the subject and the technology combined, the subject can become an Actor on the larger actor network (Bruno Latour’s Actor Network Theory). If the human spends time in a non-place, then the addition of a non-place accessed through the social group tears through the solitary contractuality characterized by the non-place. Both the place and the non-place can exist at once, because in the supermodern perspective all dichotomies blur into one another. The world is full of non-places and strangers. An airport is has nothing to do with history, identity, or relation. It is a liminal place - a space between spaces. It is the same with a highway or a supermarket.

Regaining Community After Isolation

The isolated human in the non-place seeks to reconnect with those in proximity, but cannot. The isolated human can either turn to an music comfort object such an ipod to regain a sense of place, or a network of
others sharing that same alienated strangeness.

What emerges from the fading social norms is naked, frightened, aggressive ego in search of love and help. In the search for itself and an affectionate sociality, it easily gets lost in the jungle of the self…Someone who is poking around in the fog of his of his or her own self is no longer capable of noticing that this isolation, this ’solitary-confinement of the ego’ is a mass sentence. [Ulrich Beck, 40 in Bauman's Liquid Modernity 2000:37].

Twitter allows the “everyday” to be discussed, and thus it reopens the public sphere to discussion. But, modern information, or ‘light information’ is only accessible by hybrids (those whose social landscapes are mediated by technological exchange), or those who are capable of liminally transforming into technosocial hybrids or ‘light industrial’ objects. It is not enough to simply liminally transition. The online self is becoming omniscient and omnipresent. Each network allows one to digitize different elements of one’s
lived reality of ‘everydayness’.

Post-Isolation, Social Rules Begin to Reappear

An entire set of new social roles have developed around the use of technology. Erving Goffman’s “The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life” relates directly to this. A profile Is another extension of connection and
etiquette that can be optimized or used poorly. In a reputation economy, companies are breaking down into social constructs as well. The days of billboard approximation are dissolving into one-on-one company/customer communications where the user co-creates the psychology of the online space just as much as the creator. In this world, the concepts of physics are even more prevalent. The shape of space makes people move, and flow of people shapes space.

Entering into a network by becoming part cyborg creates the ability for the subject to augment social and physical capabilities. The cell phone allows people to be more omniscient and omnipresent. Technology allows one to transcend more readily the confines of the flesh-burdened human body. Information stored on the computer can be seen as accessed by many at once, allowing copies of a person’s essence to
be present in many places at once.

Maureen McHugh once wrote that “soon, perhaps, it will be impossible to tell where human ends and machines begin”.

What part of us connects to others when we use a cell phone? If the cell phone is the carrying device for our auditory avatars, are we still fully human when we use it? Online, when we use Twitter, are we living more fully and quickly than we ever could in real life? I think so. When I sit at long table with twenty seats, I can’t communicate with twenty people at once, but online, everyone is the same distance away, if I choose them to be. Also, I don’t have to worry if there’s a rude guest sitting across from me. I can silence that person with a short click of a button. Spam be gone.

Not that I’m suggesting that dinner parties be replaced by Twitter conversations, by any means. Rather, I’m suggesting that Twitter is a way to filter through and find a bunch of gems across space and time that one can really interface really well with in real life. Twitter also adds another dimension onto life — this sort of backchannel rapid communication. That way, when you have a dinner party full of Twitter people, you can all feel like you’ve known each other for a lot longer than you really have. And maybe not have to worry about the spammers.

About

Amber Case is a Cyborg Anthropologist and New Media consultant living in Portland, Oregon. You can find her on Twitter @caseorganic, or may contact her via E-mail at caseorganic at gmail.com.

Portland rocks. It has excellent food, coffee, people, techies, transportation, foliage, entertainment, and bloggers! But we have suffered a tragedy: we just lost OSCON to San Jose. What!? From Jul 17-19, 2009 Lets replace it with something equally tremendous. And we can.

How?

With this handy Google Spreadsheet Form.

Yep, that’s four lines of text you have to type in. That way I can E-mail you cool stuff. Like little snippets of text to post on your blog, or a list of E-mails with some text to include in them, or ideas for posts, so that lots of people can get really excited about the conference. Like “10 reasons why Portland would be a sweet place for BLogHer”, “20 great places to eat in Portland”, and “Why Portland bloggers rock and how close the airport is” will be randomly sent to you.

The posts will be really short, and from time to time, I’ll make posts on Hazelnut Tech Talk and link them to all of your posts. This way, we’ll get this cool forcefield of blogs promoting the idea of BlogHer. That’s more visibility for your blog, and your friend’s blogs. What’s not to like?

Why am I supporting this?

For the good of the community, of course! Portland has given so much to me, and the wonderful people out there have taught me about amazing things. As a technosocial cyborg, cyberspace is pretty genderless to me, but for those who it is not yet, BlogHer might be a useful way for cool people to meet other cool people and get things done. Hooray for that!

Plus, I voted for Portland after Rick Turoczy made this post about bringing BlogHer to Portland, and we ended up being one of the top cities besides Philadelphia and St. Louis. We’re almost there. All we need to do is make everyone understand just how important this event this will be for the city/people/community.

Contact?

You can randomly connect with me if you’d like. Feel free to E-mail me or follow me on Twitter @caseorganic.

Mashups and API’s are some of the best ways to get customized, rich data that is not accessible by one site alone.

Mashups use API’s to gather different data streams into ones that allow less user action to useful data ratios.

As search-expert Rand Fishkin of Seomoz.org pointed out, “One of One of the best resources out there for finding APIs is ProgrammableWeb’s API Directory.

I had a great time hanging out on it, and found that while some of the apps were broken or missing, some of the apps were worthy of review. I’ve placed 5 here for your edification. At the very least, they should spark inspiration, critisim, or discussion: your pick.

1. Local Blog Search

FeedMap allows you to see Blogs from your neighborhood and subscribe to their RSS feeds after seeing their descriptions and latest posts.

When I searched for Portland, Oregon, I found a lot of blogs, but none that I recognized. Most were under the radar - not the big ones like eROI, or SiliconFlorist:

Sample Result for Portland, Oregon:

Loosely Coupled Human Code Factory - A.K.A. Mercenary Engineer Feed Blog
Recent posts: Your Agile and The Flow

The site has nearby blogs as well as tagging capabilities for each blog. Not bad for finding smaller blogs within one’s area.

2. Auto Generated Event Sites

EventSites allows you to make quick websites for your event.

Test

I decided to make a site for Tweet PDX, and was amused to find that the hours were in 24 hour mode.

Flickr Tags

Excitingly, there was a Flickr tag prompt. I found this to be useful.

Saving the event

I was promoted to register an account with Eventful to create the event, so I did. Another caseorganic landgrab.

Event Dispersal

I really enjoyed one aspect of EventSites; the ability to send the event to Google Calendar, del.icio.us Events, Ping-O-matic, Upcoming.org and Facebook, Myspace and Technorati with a few clicks of a button (assuming you allow Upcoming.org access to EventSites).
Cool stuff.

3. Ask 500 People and Watch the Results

Ask500People shows real time stats of poll questions geographically and numerically as they are asked.
Awesome.

4. A Place Between Us

a.placebetween.us says “Trying to find a meeting place between friends? Enter your addresses and the type of place you want to meet.”

So I did. I said I’d like to meet someone between the Portland Small Business Accelerator and Backspace. It wasn’t smart (I had to enter the exact address as well as the city and state), and the results only gave me Startbucks Coffee.
Good idea, terrible data granularity. So much for that Mashup.

5. Where is the Path? (or street)

Where is the Path is an interesting mashup that combines topographic maps with Google Satellite maps to help you match trails with what they look like in real life, from above.

The interface uses two targets that match up the topo map to the Google map. Not bad. Also works for cities. Might be useful for finding bike paths/alt routes.

Conclusions

If you find an awesome Mashup or set of Mashups, please tell me about it.

You can also send billions of links to @caseorganic if you happen to enjoy Twitter.

On Sept. 4+5 an interdisciplinary thought-leader event will hit Portland. The name of the Conference is Inverge: The Interactive Convergence.

What is Inverge?

An interdisciplinary event that focuses on the convergence of media platforms, of virtual + physical, content + advertising, and corporate content + consumer-generated content.

The presentations are high-level, informative and conceptual, pointing the way toward the future and facilitating advanced professional development.

How does it work?

Inverge brings presenters and attendees together from a variety of professions and disciplines to explore changes and opportunities presented by the increasing digitization of media, the democratization of distribution and the proliferation of connectivity into new areas.

Cyborg Anthropology

As a Cyborg Anthropologist, I am very interested in this conference. I’ve been studying convergence culture for as long as I can remember. It is one of the most unique and challenging subjects that has ever struck humanity.

Steve Gehlen, Inverge organizer and founder of the Internet Strategy Forum invited me to speak at the event. I’ll be presenting a lighting talk on Friday, September 5th at 1Pm.

A Ten Minute History of Technological Compression

From Telephone to Tweetup: an abbreviated history of technology and social exchange.

Presentation Summary

The invention of the telephone ushered in an era of ‘on-demand’ social connection. These conversations were freeing, but were still limited to location and time. As communication technology matured, telephones became detached from their cords and were allowed to travel with their users. This detachment from location allowed conversation to happen in more times and more places.

As the amount of time and space between nodes of connection decreased, the intersection of rapid news methods such as blogging, mobile technology, and chatrooms begin to merge. This convergence allowed dramatic increases in the ability to rapidly convey information to others. Instead of engaging with one person at a time, many are now capable of talking at once. No where is this more prevalent than on Twitter. It has found ways to connect communities, stave off suburban isolation, and warn of earthquakes before medical help can access them.

Other Presentation Topics

Portland’s Scott Kveton, Chairman, OpenID Foundation, VP of Open Platforms, Vidoop.

You can view the rest of the featured speakers on the Inverge Website.

Joshua Green, Research Manager, Convergence Culture Consortium at MIT.

Renny Gleeson, Global Director of Digital Strategies, Wieden+Kennedy.

Registration

If you haven’t already, you can still Register for Inverge.

All Inverge 2008 paid registrants will receive a complimentary copy of the JupiterResearch report entitled Media Trends: Understanding Change Catalysts, published earlier this year. This represents a $1,500 value. If you happen to be a company, this report will probably be very useful to you.

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Thanks for reading Hazelnut Tech Talk! If you’re interested in continuing the conversation, feel free to comment on this post. You can follow me online through @caseorganic or E-mail.

I won’t be in Portland for the next few days. That’s because I’ll be attending Gnomedex in Seattle.

I’ll be live-tweeting, podcasting, and blogging from the event. That is, if there is any time between meeting and greeting amazing people.

What is Gnomedex?

Gnomedex is an event that will host some of the world’s leading bloggers, podcasters, videobloggers, and tech-savvy enthusiasts. Gnomedex 8.0 will be in Seattle, Washington from August 21st – 23rd, 2008.

Why I’m Attending

It’s an interesting story. I have a sort of conference addiction. I like to attend at least one every two months to reinvigorate the ideas running through my head, and to meet the intense minds that attend them. That said, I live as cheaply as possible so as to afford these events.

The price tag on Gnomedex was a little high for me, but I remembered what Dale Carnegie once said: “If you need something, ask for it”. So I tried it. I found Chris Pirlillo’s E-mail address and wrote him a letter about how I was doing a lot of experiments during conferences and that Gnomedex would be an excellent place to continue these experiments. I also told him about Cyborg Anthropology and how it relates to social media studies. Finally, I told him that it was going to be a little difficult to afford the conference.

Sweetopia

So he E-mailed me back, and told me he’d get me in for free. So I am going. And I’m VERY excited. I’ll be leaving on the Iterasi Bus organized by Alex Williams (@podcasthotel) with a wonderful medley of amazing individuals, including Marshall Kirkpatrick of ReadWriteWeb, Pete Grillo, Jay Stewart, Ethan Kaplan, Kevin Fox, Britney Mason, Drew Olanoff, Jason Harris, Londa Quisling and Eva Schweber of Cubespace.

Full List of Conference Attendees

A full list of conference attendees which includes Carolynn Duncan of Epic Ventures and Rick Turoczy of Silicon Florist and Charlene Li (formerly of Forrester Research) and Robert Scoble can be accessed ONLY if you click this link and scroll down the page! (que spam filters).