Simeon Spearman: February 2008 Archives

There I was driving through the Atlanta suburbs on February 10 when I started seeing teenagers with handmade signs and masks. In a few seconds I came over a hill and saw around 75 people with signs and face masks standing across the street from a line of police in riot gear outside of the local Church of Scientology. Later, I discovered that I had found the local version of a worldwide anti-Scientology protest held that day, organized by a group simply calling themselves "Anonymous."

Anonymous is a group of Internet users from across the globe who are organizing a series of protests against Scientology using basic Web technologies. What began as a simple series of hacks against Scientology's websites has turned into an international movement occurring in both cyberspace and in the real world. The amazing part of this story is how easily the group has managed to organize worldwide protests without a central leader or group telling everyone what to do.

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"Location, location, location," is increasingly becoming the mantra around new media services, and 2008 seems poised to be a year of growth for hyperlocal content delivery and other location-based services.

Google recently unveiled a new feature on its Google News page--Google News Local, allowing readers to get news occurring only in their local area. Google is moving into this space at a time when GPS is making people more aware of their surroundings and driving innovations in localized content in the form of location-based services like mobile ads for local businesses. Google's local news service joins dominant localized news site Topix.net and newcomer EveryBlock in this content area, and many Internet users will benefit from having better access to news in their area.

Google isn't the only major company taking advantage of hyperlocalized content.

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Ladies, how would you feel if your admirer sent coupons to your mobile phone as a sign of his affection for you?

Apparently, South Koreans don't mind at all. SK Telecom's "Gifti-con" service lets users send coupons to each other's phones in the form of messages with bar codes that can be scanned at the point of sale. The service has seen year-over-year growth of 700% since its launch in 2006, with 300,000 users sending over $1 million worth of coupons to each other per month. Such an exchange can be quite romantic (or creepy, depending on how you look at it), according to this article:

Kim Mi-ran, a 20-year-old co-ed, smiles at a text message that she has just received on her mobile phone. It says, "Enjoy an Ice Caramel Macchiato coffee at Starbucks." It was from a male student whom she had met socially, but seldom talks to her.

"I like this way of letting her know my interest in her," grins the male student who sent the gift coupon by phone.

"I would be a little too nervous to call her and say 'hi," he adds.

The SK Telecom representative quoted in the article claims that the service was created to nurture human relationships, and I think it's great that services like this let people go beyond merely communicating to actually doing something nice for one another. Shy males are more willing to show their feelings through these gifts since they are discreet and practically effortless. The representative even provides the example of people buying more intimate gifts, such as underwear, for their lovers since the service shields them from embarrassment.

Cynics may say that this is another example of technology eroding face-to-face interaction. Personally, I'm hoping that things work out for Kim Mi-ran and her gift-coupon texting admirer.

[via textually.org] 

Image: yisris (Flickr)