Oh Look, My Social Networking Hat

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

Any other social networking/social media affectionados out there? Y’all should read this very interesting post by Cody Brown that talks about the difference between how Twitter, MySpace and Facebook scaled, the identity crisis of the former two, and what all that likely means for the business. And then, if you really want to geek out, read this article from TechCrunch that walks through some leaked confidential documents from a Twitter insider. (Way far down in that article, if you get that far, they talk about the Twitter employee “Happiness Committee” which made me LOL.)

The Coles Notes gist is that, while Facebook started small and with a particular focus (ie: connecting real life identities online as a way to keep in touch with collage friends), Twitter and MySpace created a basic tool and tried to grab as many users as it could as soon as possible. Where Facebook’s slow growth allowed it to closely watch how its users were using the site and begin tailoring and tweaking the features to make it easier to do those things, MySpace and Twitter both grew so quickly that they couldn’t keep up with the different ways their tool was being used in any meaningful way. The ReTweet and hashtag phenomenons are not and never were something created by the company, but rather something created and distributed across Tweetdom by the users as a simple way to credit other people for the content of a Tweet or tag Tweets for easy searchability on a platform that offered no formal tagging system. Similarly, MySpace never envisioned itself to be a home for blossoming indy musicians, but that group of people started twisting their profiles for that use and now MySpace has a rather large swath of users it’s not entirely sure what to do with and a profile system that’s been hacked almost beyond recognition.

Having never used MySpace myself, I have only a vague, academic understanding of how the service is used. I do know, however, that Twitter was designed initially as a mass SMS texting service and, yes, it does still do that sometimes, but has morphed through exponential, frantically-paced growth to be something far, far different. In the past six months Twitter has almost single-handedly reversed the way news online (and offline) is distributed, putting the public in the know (for a given, rumour-like value of “in the know”) before mainstream media’s had a chance to put its boots on. Trending topics on Twitter house meme and news items alike, and it’s often difficult to tell which is really which (see exhibit Michael Jackson). Users are linked in directly to a mass public consciousness that shifts and splits and reforms around news and ideas, and memes replicate themselves at a faster rate than ever before. (For a really interesting talk about memes, check out Susan Blackmore’s TedTalk on the subject. Very relevant to Twitter and more than a little prophetic given the February 2008 date of this talk.)

Reading through the company’s meeting notes, it’s plain as day to see the business is trying to figure out how to lead the masses it’s hosting, how to deal with the celebrity presence that it largely owes it’s massive user adoption to but sees as a “distraction”, how to deal with the threats of Google real-time search and Facebook’s aggressive campaign to adopt those features that make it’s service more like Twitter, and is still floundering trying to sort out a way to make money off the whole thing. (Sidenote: I get why Twitter’s all freaked out about Google search, but I’m not sure why they’re bothering trying to compete there. If I was them I’d be way more concerned about Google Wave than search, but that’s just me.) My guess is Twitter will flounder on for a while yet, and may ultimately have to break down into two or three separate services, but only time will tell. Twitter has spun so far out of its own control now that there’s no telling whether it will fall to earth, find a stable orbit, or fling itself completely out of the atmosphere.

Debunking Canadian Health Care Myths

Tuesday, August 18th, 2009

Thank you, Denver Post, for writing this article so I don’t have to. I think probably most of the Americans on my flist are for some kind of health care reform so y’all probably don’t need it, but if you know someone clinging to these myths I’d be ever so grateful if you’d pass this along.

I’m pretty fucking sick and tired of the nonsense being spouted about Canadian provincial heath care, and I know I’m not the only one. The “facts” are either being spun so far out of shape as to hardly resemble the truth or are complete lies. The Republican party can bite me.

I would like to particularly highlight the following, emphasis mine:

Myth: Canada’s government decides who gets health care and when they get it.
While HMOs and other private medical insurers in the U.S. do indeed make such decisions, the only people in Canada to do so are physicians. In Canada, the government has absolutely no say in who gets care or how they get it. Medical decisions are left entirely up to doctors, as they should be.

There are no requirements for pre-authorization whatsoever. If your family doctor says you need an MRI, you get one. In the U.S., if an insurance administrator says you are not getting an MRI, you don’t get one no matter what your doctor thinks — unless, of course, you have the money to cover the cost.

Myth: Canadians are paying out of pocket to come to the U.S. for medical care.
Most patients who come from Canada to the U.S. for health care are those whose costs are covered by the Canadian governments. If a Canadian goes outside of the country to get services that are deemed medically necessary, not experimental, and are not available at home for whatever reason (e.g., shortage or absence of high tech medical equipment; a longer wait for service than is medically prudent; or lack of physician expertise), the provincial government where you live fully funds your care. Those patients who do come to the U.S. for care and pay out of pocket are those who perceive their care to be more urgent than it likely is.

Our health care costs less. The care we get is decided by doctors, not the government and bloody well not by some sort of death board or whatever the fuck they’re calling it now. If a doctor says I need something, the province pays for it, no questions or inquiries or exceptions or nonsense about “pre-existing conditions”. The only time we wait for care is when it’s non-urgent specialist care or elective surgery, and the wait times are almost always entirely reasonable. We have lower mortality rates than the US across the board.

I would also like to highlight this quote from demotu because I think she said it better than I could:

…[Canadians], in the majority, lack the foundation of “individual over society”. Rather, the welfare of the whole of society is superior to the rights of the individual. What does that mean? Well, it means we expect our rich to give up the right to snap their fingers for instant care so that every member of society can have access to equally good medical care. … All of the arguments against socialized heath care essentially boil down to “but my right to get whatever I can pay for is more important than equality”. I’m not going to say that’s the wrong mindset, but it’s not mine and not one I want governing the country I live in.

Word.

An Open Letter to America

Monday, August 10th, 2009

Dear America:

Of all the things I don’t understand about you, your paranoia of public health care is at the very top of the list. Someone please explain why this scares people south of the border so damn much. I don’t understand how a people who champion the right to free speech the way Americans do get all bent out of shape and outright panicy about the right to, you know, live.

Do I wish I didn’t have to pay for all those idiots who smoke or drug themselves to death? Sure. But I’d pay for them all a thousand times — a thousand thousand times — over to keep public, social health care. Worth every penny. The Alberta government keeps trying to con us into this two-tier system and has so far been (thankfully) unsuccessful. Slightly lower taxes are absolutely not worth risking people’s physical and financial well-being on something as fickle as chance.

For serious, though. I don’t get it. Of all the times to cling to absolute capitalism, why here?

Confused and confounded,

Chelle