Metaversal Mining

Unashamedly focussed on a single news article this one, but it is very close to my heart and my area of academic interest.
Read this link to a story at The Guardian, think about it then get back to this blog if you want to.

OK. So we understand the concept. A technologically and socially adept set of first adopters have a tool that is globally visible, but exclusionary since not everyone can use it and not everyone can read or write meaning in 140 characters. What the article doesn’t mention is that twitter is also socially exclusionary since not everyone can use their phones at work, not everyone can afford to access it, some people sleep at different times and it is language specific (discourse is in the local language).

Right now, as the article correctly identifies, the twitterati are dominated by younger, liberal-minded, outward looking, technically and media savvy people. There is not a full representation of political and social diversity. You have to pay your way into the scene by learning ‘the language’ and buying the service and, of course, spending time interacting.
I’ve tried it, same as I tried Facebook and MySpace. They all take a great deal of effort to maintain at a level where you gain credibility (or friends or followers or disciples or whatever) outside your existing social circle. Whats different with micro-blogging is the speed and fluidity that the few million users can jump on and off emotive topics and the willingness that they have to transfer those emotions to offline actions.

Don’t have any delusions about the changing of minds happening within the twittersphere. No sane person changes an opinion that is already formed based upon a 140 character message or two. However what it could motivate is action on extant opinion.
Like the guy at the pub who suggests the curry. We all like curry, we’re all hungry after a few pints, we just hadn’t considered a curry tonight, but it sounds like a good idea. Lets do it.
Of course there could be downsides to this rapid response. To stretch the curry analogy; we’d be £20 lighter the next morning (we have spent time, money and effort participating in the twitterstorm) and may have a bad stomach (the results of the twitterstorm may not be what we personally wanted).
So there are risks attached to crowd-sourced actions based upon reactions to events. In that it is similar to democracy, but it is a very skewed democracy where information access is asymmetrical and the demos is selected.

Most times in a democracy the group takes collective responsibility for collective action until such time as it is no longer immediately relevant who suggested that action. If we can find out who initiated an action within a day or an hour of that action, what does that say for the quality and breadth of debate in such a speedy ‘democracy’ ?
I like to think about actions which I know will have consequences for others before I take them. I am analytical and make no apologies for that, but in the blink of an eye a twitterstorm seems to be able to effect superficial change. What does that say to me as someone who prefers to think for a day or two before I act ? Are my opinions irrelevant ? Is analysis dead and the wisdom of the crowd the only way forward ? Do we really believe that only emotion-led opinions are worthy of action ?

Hyperbolae of course. No-one is suggesting that everyone be given a twitterset and asked to opine on every option their elected government has, you’d be completely overloaded. As an individual in such a society you’d have to automate the routine decisions to reflect your already formed opinion, or tacitly approve through abstention.
We’re rapidly approaching the point where that automation is possible, but what about the opinion ? Do we set it through software user preferences ? Do we let a program learn our opinions by watching our real-world actions ? How would we sanction a program that failed to express our true opinion ?

I’ll leave you with this. I already automate my news gathering through an RSS aggregation tool. Its the only way that I can keep on top of the international scale topics that I look at. But that means that it excludes other news without consulting me. Am I forming my opinion ?