The information superhighway is the conduit through which the world operates these days. Since the invention of the computer, we have incorporated technology more and more into the daily operations of our businesses, our education, and now the very fabric of that which makes us human: our social relationships. The rise of Facebook as the titan of social media in the digital world was swift and powerful. So much so that in the 7 years (yes, the Facebook website was launched only 7 years ago from a Harvard dorm room,) it has gained 600,000,000 users, averages 138.9 million unique monthly visitors as estimated by Quantcast, and according to Social Media Today in April 2010, an estimated 41.6% of the United States population has a Facebook account. So what is left to do for the company that was started by a college student and within 6 years became the 3^rd largest Internet-based company in the U.S.? Read more…

Seeing patterns in randomness. That’s what pareidolia means. Our brains naturally search for patterns. That’s what makes us smart. Intelligence tests typically ask you to find patterns in things like shapes and numbers. 2, 43, 29, 6…what comes next? I don’t know because I just made those up by tapping the number pad, but many people could find some connection between those numbers. Are those people right or wrong? I didn’t intend any connection, but does that mean there isn’t one? Scientists frequently fall victim to pareidolia. It’s considered a cognitive bias. When looking at a huge table of data, it’s natural to see patterns. Superimpose it over another table and you’ll find even more. Read more…

This thing we call the Internet, the single largest advancement in human communication to date, has in roughly two decades transformed the way we communicate, the way we work, play and think. So many things have changed, yet I can’t help but be certain the Internet we know today is still in it’s infancy and we see only hints of deep cultural transformations on the horizon. It is too easy and only natural for all of us to forget how fantastic this technology really is. After all, it surrounds us and we become numb to it’s novelty but, it really is the stuff of science-fiction becoming a reality. In George Orwell‘s 1984 (written in 1948), a dystopic world is captive to Big Brother, the all seeing, all knowing, ever suspicious government churning out it’s propaganda via omnipresent 2-way TV screens. Orwell envisioned a world made hopeless by a horrific technology, an inescapable Internet. He for saw the the power of such technology and the danger of letting it fall into the hands of the corrupt and powerful. Read more…