New “twist” to blog marketing

There’s a cheeky new spin on marketing via blogs — and it’s not blog friendly. I received a trackback from a comment that was attached to my Feb. 13 posting: “Network communication to the max.”

When I reviewed the comment, I discovered that it was a advertisement for someone else selling ringtones. As far as I’m concerned, that takes a lot of guts — piggybacking on another’s blog to schlep your social products. Especially when the advertisement isn’t even on topic.

Well, insofar as this is about communications, I guess they’ve stayed within a loose connection. Ringtones are all about communicating after all; if you don’t hear your cell phone ring, you can’t answer it. And, although I didn’t follow their link to determine what genre their ringtones fall into, I guess the cultural mode is that ringtones are contemporary, often themes from movies (my son’s phone plays the “Matrix” theme) or popular television shows.

The trackback, fortunately, offers me the option of removing the comment. In this instance, I left the comment because I decided to compose this blog entry. If it happens again — and I suspect it’ll be a trend, at least for a while — the comment will get my boot. [Ed. note: After the 11th or 12th time I got trackbacks for somebody's "answer" to my message -- stupid, spam, obscene, or whatever else -- now I just delete 'em all en bloc.]

Why do I think it will become a trend? For the same reason that I get 60-75 email messages every day from people selling me … nothing, garbage, stocks that don’t exist, sex potions, Nigerian banking opportunities … ringtones. I don’t use ringtones. My neighbor’s ”Led Zeppelin” ring annoys me (don’t get me wrong, I have LedZeppelin on my iPhone but only in the music).

 Maybe that’s the whole idea. As a society, we have sublimated the individual to the point where individuals are pushing back. “Notice me” seems to be the [unspoken] watch phrase of the 2000’s. The courts are filled with people shouting … in socially unacceptable non-verbal ways … “notice me; even if only for a moment, and only to punish me.”

I chose WordPress as my forum to get attention. I’m just like everyone else — I want to be noticed. But I can’t, under any circumstances, force myself to intrude on someone else’s space in order to ingratiate myself or satisfy my craving.

Our home telephone is cordless. Lately, it’s started picking up a lot of garble from other units nearby. It’s not unusually to channel hop the whole frequency spectrum and never find a clear signal. A week ago, a women barged into my conversation with my mother, in a perfectly audible voice, and chastised me for “monopolizing her phone time.”

So it should come as no surprise that my blog, and maybe yours soon, have become forums for others to seek notice. And for this, I have no spam filter.

I called the trend cheeky. When I advised him of the trend, my friend Jerry responded by calling it ”cheesy.” Yup!

Anywhere, anytime

At the heart of convergence is a desire to link up with, and understand, other intelligent people, potentially in many locations.

This mind-to-mind communications transcends time zones (I’ve spent late nights organizing functions in Hong Kong and Sydney and come to work way early to coordinate with Germany and U.K.) — in fact, it has the potential of rendering the solar calendar unnecessary.

This converged communications brings one step closer the potential for a truly unified globe, the kind that Asimov and Heinlein predicted. With convergence comes a common language. It could be any language, most likely English or Japanese to begin — but eventually it WILL morph into a completely unique, universally understood language of communications.

As the technology improves and more capabilities are added to the device list, the language may cease to be spoken or written and may become symbolic and visual. Who needs words when streaming media is so much more compelling. And with the massive rendering engines (Toy Story, etc.) becoming more accessible, smaller, and less expensive, we may all someday be able to create our own little visual vignettes.

If we can do business over the airwaves, through wi-fi or the cellular spectrum — or maybe the Next Big Thing, whatever it is — anything becomes possible. Parents are better able to protect children, mobile offices become easier to establish, and the labor force is empowered from wherever is most functional or comfortable.

I’m reminded of two conversations I had at JavaOne, neither related to Java or development. Both are facets of communications that demonstrate

I talked to a content syndicator who wants to (and soon will be able to) push newspaper and television content out to any wireless device that accepts an XML stream. In other words, the publishers suddenly have access to thousands of devices worldwide AND millions of subscribers worldwide have access to any news any time any where.

I met a fellow from a major Midwestern (USA) university who is frustrated trying to communicate with his service staff, who spend considerable time in the institution’s 23 miles of steam tunnels. The “walkie-talkie” devices work close to the surface but not deep in the physical network. But — their cell phones seem to work from everywhere. He’s looking for a way to communicate to all at once, to groups at a time, and to individuals, to send routing information, service orders, even blueprints when appropriate.

It’s an awesome challenge but we seem to be overcoming the problems a leap at a time. By the time I retire, I expect global communications convergence. And by the time my children (26 and 22) retire, I expect they will be tied to their work and community in converged ways I can’t even dream now.

Check out my online article A New Paradigm for more thoughts.

Network communication to the max

I’ve been thinking a lot about the convergence of computing and communications — and how incredibly tied to networks we’ve become. There’s a network for almost everything you can do.

There are cell phone networks, technical social networks (SMS, for example), internal/intranet networks, broadband networks, television networks, and networks of roads for transportation. Sometimes these networks are superimposed on each other, which either simplifies things or complicates it.

Railroads, for example, have to track the cargo being shipped, to make sure it is delivered to the right place on time, and to make sure they get paid for the shipment. So they’ve imposed multiple networks on top of each other.

1. There’s the track — it forms a nationwide physical network of more than 156,000 miles (and connects to Canada and Mexico as well). Cars on this network interchange freely from one railroad company to another because it doesn’t matter to shippers whose car shows up at their loading dock.
2. On top of that is each railroad’s signal system, to make sure the danger of operating multiple trains in multiple directions is abated. As you travel, you see wires strung from poles at trackside. Each wire represents a section (approximately a mile) of track the network protects. When you see the signal light change to red, or yellow, or green, it’s because the train has tripped a sensor and the network is responding, based on known factors of human reaction time, mechanical limitations, and the psychology of colors.
3. And finally, there is the invoicing/shipment tracking system. This connects the mainframe computer in one yard to the mainframe in another yard. Waybills (bills of lading) for each car are transmitted from yard to yard and given to the yard crews making up each day’s train so CarA from CompanyA in CityA gets into a train to CityZ instead of a train to CityW and the car (and cargo) doesn’t sit forgotten on a siding in CityK. It also makes sure the shipment is appropriately billed to CompanyA (the shipper) or CompanyW (the receiver).

Other social entities do the same thing. Trucking companies network to stay in communication with the customer — and most now link directly to each driver. Utility companies (look at the huge Tennessee Vally Power Authority and how it dispatches power throughout its grid) use networks track which local utilities get the power and which generating facility created it, to bill everyone properly, and to keep themselves optimally maintained. Whew!

Don’t forget to see my articles on other kinds of social and physical networks at http://www.communicationsintegrator.com/.