3 Geeks and a Law Blog

I came across this PC World article highlighting Google's Latitude. The title, "Spy on Your Workers," caught my eye so I checked it out. It explores this new offering and some implications it may bring. Since KM is about capturing knowledge and then making it easily accessible, Latitude falls squarely on the KM dime. It combines Web 2.0, with social networking with cell phone tracking. The result: you can see where your friends, family and co-workers are at a given time. It works for both cell phone locations as well as computer locations (based on where you connect). As long as you trust Google not to become or enable Big Brother type uses, you may choose to see Latitude as a 'little brother' or maybe 'social brother' application. Beyond a certain 'cool' factor to check out where your friends are at anytime, it has business KM applications for employers needing to track locations of employees. To its credit, Google in its normal fashion leaves control in the hands of the user. You can hide yourself and/or expose your location as you see fit. As with a number of new technologies, I am mixed with a sense of 'that's cool' and 'this is freakin me out.' My uber geek friend Lincoln has already sent me a Latitude invite. As an old friend of mine he already knows where numerous bodies are buried (and vice versa), so I accepted his invite to check this out. I'll need to give this more thought, especially after playing with it a bit. I've already set it up on my laptop and will do so on my Blackberry to see how it works and feels. KM implications? Numerous. Latitude adds a unique layer of knowledge that has a value-add potential we shouldn't ignore. But still ... it's freakin me out.

When I worked in academia, we used to joke that universities were great places to work -- except for all the students.  We loved the ability to work along side bright people, and contemplate new ways of addressing old ideas.  The same is true for Social Media.  It is a great resource to contemplate new ways of addressing old ideas --  now, if we could just ignore all the people out there.

We are watching the beginnings of the media giants taking over social networking. I got an inkling of this when I heard that LexisNexis, an online research service, bought Martindale Hubbell, an online legal directory, who in turn partnered with LinkedIn, an online networking site. Lexis has partnered with Chambers Global, a UK business that ranks lawyers and law firm's proficiency, to display the Chambers rankings on Martindale. Lexis is owned by Reed Elselvier, one of the world's largest providers of online information. RE employs 35,000 around the world and reported revenues of £4,584m/€6,693m/$6,625m. Which brings me to my story. Flickr has censored a Spanish psychologist's collection of photos and art because of his offensive content. He was told, "Use your common sense to determine if your content is appropriate or not to a global audience (emphasis added) ... you must know that if we receive another report about your content or conduct, it is very likely to cancel your account." The offending content? Smoking. Now, certainly, we should be outraged at the topic of this censorship; it is as offensive as it gets no matter what side you weigh in on. But let us, instead, look at the larger issue. The authority, and the manner in which Flickr--now owned by Yahoo--weilds its authority, in determining what content is acceptable to a global audience. I ask you: who is this site to determine what is globally acceptable? How can one online community, scattered hither and yore, determine what is globally acceptable? Flickr's solution--more rightly, Yahoo's--is to establish an indiscriminate discriminating program that automates the intake of complaints, then sends out an automated warning to the content holder to straighten up and fly right. If they don't, they are censored to an "adult-only" section. If they receive too many complaints, they are booted. It is nearly impossible to appeal this process to a human. Its like spotting a unicorn--rumoured to exist and any successful attempt is regarding as myth. With these sorts of problems, I have witnessed another solution: have human admins troll the site. I remember AOL employed such folks back in the day when chat rooms were booming. I saw this type of policing just recently on a LiveJournal site called Vintage Photographs. They employed this method to mediate between posters when the worthiness of a photo was called into question. When a comment fight ensued, the mediator would step in, make a judgment then put the offending participants on a week-long vacation. If it happened too many times, the participant was banned. The danger in these types of situations is that admins are either too lax or revel in their meaningless authority and go power-crazy. Meh. But can't you see it now? What are the long-term results? In a Yahoo-type environment, the program becomes the power and Hal2000 takes over. In a VintagePhoto environment, we end up creating a hierarchy of online judges that fall under no jurisdiction. My guess? By the year 2020, we will have a virtual jurisdiction. We have to. With the likes of Reed Elsevior and LexisNexis and LinkedIn now entering the arena, social networking is taking a decidedly serious turn. Lord knows who will rule this virtual world . . .