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Smart Mobs, Swarms, and Flash Crowds
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Eye and face contact (Score:1, Troll)
by SpatchMonkey on Wednesday July 31, @09:40AM (#3985604)
(User #300000 Info | Last Journal: Tuesday July 16, @02:40PM)
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The unfortunate result of these sorts of devices is that is takes out of practice the social skills of those who use them.
Like the stereotypical pale-skinned nerd masterbating over Linux in his mother's basement, people who tend to use these new PDA technologies are seriously missing out on the more traditional forms of human contact.
A wink, a nod and a smile can convey so much more than "asl?"
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What about health risks (Score:1, Insightful)
by PhysicsGenius (physics_seeker@@@yahoo...com) on Wednesday July 31, @09:41AM (#3985611)
(User #565228 Info)
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We've all seen what happens when people are exposed to second-hand smoke--what about second hand EM radiation? There are significant reasons to believe that "personal communication devices" (why not just say "cellphones"?) cause cancer, increasing the density in a crowd can only lead to further disaster. This is exactly why I take my daily dose of extract of hyperia seed. Traditional, invasive medicine rejects it but the Chinese have been using it for centuries to ward off cancer.
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The revolution will not be televised.. (Score:2, Funny)
by Idimmu Xul (idimmuxul at technologist dot com) on Wednesday July 31, @09:43AM (#3985621)
(User #204345 Info | http://slashdot.org/)
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but aslong as you have SMS itll be ok!
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PCD? PDC? (Score:1)
by genmanath (cptlogic@@@endor...hsutx...edu) on Wednesday July 31, @09:44AM (#3985627)
(User #577922 Info | http://endor.hsutx.edu/~cptlogic)
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*deliberately misunderstands, joking* How does one do anything quickly with a Primary Domain Controller, and since when is it fun?
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Found my calling! (Pun optional) (Score:3, Funny)
by jsonmez on Wednesday July 31, @09:46AM (#3985638)
(User #544764 Info)
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That's it that confirms it. I am going to be a phone mercenary. Me and my swarm can get there and leave before the police arrive, and we know when they are coming and where they are. Don't like your boss? Need your wife removed? Someone steal your stapler for the last time? Message me.
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Flash Crowd (Score:3, Insightful)
by dmarien (dmarien@NoSpAM.dmarien.com) on Wednesday July 31, @09:46AM (#3985645)
(User #523922 Info | http://www.dmarien.com/)
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"Twenty years later the term passed into common use on the Internet to describe exponential spikes in website or server usage when one passes a certain threshold of popular interest "
Flash Crowd == Slashdot Effect.
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Re:Flash Crowd (Score:4, Interesting)
by capt.Hij on Wednesday July 31, @10:00AM (#3985743)
(User #318203 Info | http://impact.sr.unh.edu/ | Last Journal: Monday June 17, @08:12AM)
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Former Philippine president Joseph Estrada, accused of massive corruption, was driven out of power two years ago by smart mobs who swarmed to demonstrations, alerted by their cell phones, gathering in no time. "It's like pizza delivery," Alex Magno, a political science professor at the University of the Philippines, told The Post at the time. "You can get a rally in 30 minutes -- delivered to you." Actually the flash crowd is much more effective. It seems that they actually do things other than look at web pages. For all of the calls for action that I hear here on slashdot it doesn't seem that much actually happens. Seems we have something to learn!
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| - Re:Flash Crowd by chrisseaton (Score:1) Wednesday July 31, @10:19AM
Flash Crowd != Smart Mob. FC ~= Slashdot Effect (Score:5, Insightful)
by Ungrounded Lightning (rod@node.com) on Wednesday July 31, @11:38AM (#3986535)
(User #62228 Info)
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Flash Crowd == Slashdot Effect.
Yep. The "Slashdot Effect" is the subset of Slashdot user behavior that cooresponds to a virtual flash crowd: Everybody "teleports" to the site of the news event.
But a "Smart Mob" is much different from a "Flash Crowd".
With a "Flash Crowd" hi-tek communication only enables the initial gathering. Once the mob forms they have the same characteristics as a pre-tech mob: Interpersonal communication is minimal, and the "mob organism" exhibits the collective intelligence of an ant army, far lower than that of a committee.
A "Smart Mob", on the other hand, has instant communication between separated members (and people not present). This enables large-scale organized behavior, cohesive action, regrouping, healing of "wounds", etc.
A Smart Mob has the same relation to a Flash Crowd as the "Permanent Floating Riot Club" did in the Niven short story. Though usually less hostile and sociopathic. B-)
Note that this is another example of human self-organizing behavior. Organizing people is never a problem - they do it spontaneously. Keeping them from organizing to do something undesirable, or doing something undesirable once organized, often is. (Which is why the US Constitution is primarily composed of rules limiting and channeling the government's power.)
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| - Re:Flash Crowd by sydneyfong (Score:3) Wednesday July 31, @01:26PM
- 3 replies
beneath your current threshold.
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Becoming one organism (Score:4, Interesting)
by Neuronerd (konradNO@SPAMkoerding.de) on Wednesday July 31, @09:48AM (#3985667)
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I guess my humanities friends that always told me that culture is about to turn us into a giant meta-organism are right after all.
Interesting that it took plenty of technology to get there and surprisingly little "humanities" moderation.
But then they say that a meta-organism has been what we were all along.
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The insects are all that is left (Score:5, Insightful)
by milo_Gwalthny on Wednesday July 31, @09:49AM (#3985670)
(User #203233 Info | http://milogwalthny.blogspot.com/)
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It has happened. We have become ants.
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Betting and tips (Score:2, Interesting)
by Captain Kirk (patrick@takethisoutkirks.net) on Wednesday July 31, @09:50AM (#3985681)
(User #148843 Info | http://captain.kirks.net | Last Journal: Monday February 11, @06:13PM)
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You see this swarming at the track all the time. The thing that gets me is the way people at the track get their tips on the mobile phone and you can see the bookies odds simply collapse on the latest 'favorite.' Makes it clear that you are either 'im' or 'out' and if you are not 'in' don't bet!
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I guess I'm behind the times... (Score:2)
by hyacinthus on Wednesday July 31, @09:51AM (#3985686)
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...because I've never seen the term PCD or "personal communication device" before. Of course I went straight to Google and punched it in to see what I could find, and found mostly press releases from various manufacturers and dealers in electronics. PCD isn't just a fancy acronym for "cellular phone", is it? Or does it imply some features on top of ordinary telephony, like a half-duplex "radio" feature, or the ability to send alphanumeric messages (like in that f**king stupid ad during the Olympics where a sleeping skier's buddies all silently agree to push him off the lift? I wasn't amused--packed snow isn't soft, and you could break a bone landing on it wrong from that height.)
hyacinthus.
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Yup (Score:2, Insightful)
by the bluebrain on Wednesday July 31, @09:51AM (#3985690)
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this is another social "scene" I can help define by not being part of it.
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The good side of PCDs (Score:1)
by Blind Linux on Wednesday July 31, @09:51AM (#3985693)
(User #593315 Info | Last Journal: Thursday August 01, @03:21PM)
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People have always been fairly spontaneous in nature. The concept of a flash crowd has been around for ages; the PCD manifestation of this being merely the most prominent today.
Look at the good side of PCDs and their networks: they speed up communication between social and political groups immensely. Whether the end result is viewed as productive or not, the fact that the potential for speedy meetings and conversation anywhere is there is the essence of PCDs and a truly great thing.
Of course there are downsides to them, such as the EM radiation's possibility of causing cancer... but this does not mean that PCDs are inherently bad. All things can be improved.
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Difficulties? (Score:3, Interesting)
by Violet Null on Wednesday July 31, @09:53AM (#3985697)
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There can be a dark side to all this. Swarmers can have difficulty living in the present.
Living in the present? It sounds like these people have some problems living by themselves. We've already got attention-deficit disorder, and the article brings this up near the end -- that you get people who leave if the situation doesn't immediately grab (and hold) their attention -- but the extension of this would be people who can't (or won't) go and do things on their own, without their friends (or 'swarm').
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slashdotting parties and marketroids (Score:3, Interesting)
by Alien54 on Wednesday July 31, @09:54AM (#3985704)
(User #180860 Info | http://radiofreenation.net/)
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flash crowd Larry Niven's 1973 SF short story "Flash Crowd" predicted that one consequence of cheap teleportation would be huge crowds materializing almost instantly at the sites of interesting news stories. Twenty years later the term passed into common use on the Internet to describe exponential spikes in website or server usage when one passes a certain threshold of popular interest (what this does to the server may also be called slashdot effect).
So now we get to slashdot a party, bar, or other social event. I wonder how long it will take for some marketroid to figure out a way to use the phenom as a way to promote their rather bad and awful party, bar, or social event?
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New Oxymoron! (Score:5, Funny)
by bons on Wednesday July 31, @09:56AM (#3985716)
(User #119581 Info | http://www.nozen.com/ | Last Journal: Wednesday July 17, @04:13PM)
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"Smart Mob"
News for Linguists. Stuff to banter.
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- Smart Mob by Rupert (Score:2) Wednesday July 31, @10:51AM
- Re:Smart Mob by HiThere (Score:2) Wednesday July 31, @11:20AM
- Re:Smart Mob by glitch! (Score:2) Wednesday July 31, @11:43AM
- 1 reply
beneath your current threshold.
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Herd metality (Score:3, Insightful)
by tanveer1979 on Wednesday July 31, @09:56AM (#3985723)
(User #530624 Info | http://www.geocities.com/tsk1979 | Last Journal: Sunday March 24, @10:00AM)
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Flash crowd, slashdot effect.... whatever you call it but the fact is that technology takes the instincts to a next level. Its called herd mentality, no matter how much we shrink the globe or what we do, is so wired in our genes or lets say jeans ;-), you go I come i go you come and we go they come! This is definately amusing :-). Centuries ago the same thing used to pass by word of mouth, and people used to flock for witch executions. And now sound has been replaced by electricity..The irony is that the meduim which is supposed to promote free thinking and freedom is also simultaniosly promoting whats it against!
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Sure, we have flash crowds, but... (Score:1)
by Futaba-chan on Wednesday July 31, @10:00AM (#3985742)
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...when will we be getting the associated personal teleportation devices?
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feh (Score:2, Insightful)
by K. on Wednesday July 31, @10:02AM (#3985753)
(User #10774 Info | http://www.stunbunny.org/ | Last Journal: Wednesday March 20, @11:48AM)
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Wooh, go the americans, we can call each other or send text messages, let's all write sociology papers!
Yawn goes the rest of the developed world, another fucking sms spam.
So hungry goes the developing world, and am surrounded by landmines.
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Dammmt... (Score:3, Funny)
by liquidsin on Wednesday July 31, @10:05AM (#3985767)
(User #398151 Info | http://www.fruitsofinsanity.com/)
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I can't get to the link. It's been flash-crowded already.
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It's Really A Good Thing (Score:2, Interesting)
by Flaming Foobar on Wednesday July 31, @10:10AM (#3985796)
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I like cell phones, SMS, PDA's whatnot. I like the fact that I can be reached and I can reach my friends most of the time, and I like a calendar that beeps an hour before an important meeting etc.
I think currently we are seeing a lot of people overusing their newly discovered communication media which has spawned the inevitable anti-cell phone movement. Eventually, however, I am sure what will happen is what has happened with every other new technology, i.e. these tools will become part of our everyday lives and the novelty will wear off. People will get used to all their toys and will discard the features they don't need. Not every celebrity sighting will be SMS'd to everyone at that point anymore.
I think it is not a coincidence that only the 'social' side of the mobile technology has really caught on. People want to talk to other people, either via SMS 'chatting' or regular calls, download ring tones (so their *friends* will hear them when the phone rings!). The faceless 'mobile Internet' seems to Interest very few people.
Contrary to many people, I also tend to think that the fact that people have the guts to talk about their private lives in public is a good thing. It's almost like free counceling. Of course, there is a limit to what I want to hear...
- FF
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Naw. (Score:2, Informative)
by Brown on Wednesday July 31, @10:12AM (#3985809)
(User #36659 Info | http://www.debian.org/)
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You don't say.
Maybe mobiles aren't as coomon in the USA as in the UK, but here roughly 75% of the population have one, and if you're between 15 and 25 quite a few people look at you strangely if you don't (around Cambridge anyhow). They've become expected.
For example, I was meeting my mates in London for my birthday 2 weeks ago; we were all coming in from different areas of the south of England. The day before we arranged a place and time - Victoria at 11:00. Come the next morning, everyone arrives in London, different arrival points, different times - out comes the mobiles> All 8 of us found each other within 20 mins of arriving, despite the 'group' having moved several times between the first and last person - some of whom didn't hear about the meet til that morning.
Trying to do the same on such short notice without mobiles just wouldn't be possible. Mobiles have removed the need to plan - you can just do it all on the fly.
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- Re:Naw. by kin_korn_karn (Score:2) Wednesday July 31, @10:32AM
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Saw a commercial for this at 2am (Score:2, Funny)
by gmkeegan (gmkeeganNO@SPAMyahoo.com) on Wednesday July 31, @10:17AM (#3985843)
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I think the conventional (and most descriptive) term for this behavior is flash crowd.
I thought the term was Crowds Gone Wild!
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Cell phone (Score:2, Informative)
by DaveMe (don.t.mail@me.pls) on Wednesday July 31, @10:17AM (#3985845)
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as cell phones increasingly become something that a teenager gets with her driver's license (...)
I knew the US are lagging behind Europe in terms of cell phone usage, but I didn´t think it was that much. In Germany, being 14 and not having at least a crappy Nokia 3210 means your parents are technophobic hippies, and that you´re socially death.
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- Re:Cell phone by TheOnlyCoolTim (Score:2) Wednesday July 31, @10:36AM
- Re:Cell phone by PetriWessman (Score:1) Wednesday July 31, @10:45AM
- Re:Cell phone by ThereIsNoSporkNeo (Score:2) Wednesday July 31, @10:48AM
- Re:Cell phone by jumpingfred (Score:1) Wednesday July 31, @11:02AM
- Re:Cell phone by phaze3000 (Score:2) Thursday August 01, @04:04AM
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How long until the cell phones are implants? (Score:1)
by mike3411 on Wednesday July 31, @10:26AM (#3985908)
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That article is good, and definately insightful, but the kind of behavioral changes we're witnessing now are nothing compared to what we'll experience in the next 50-some years. I'd bet that in that time cell phone technology, and human-machine interfaces will both have advanced sufficiently to create implantable wireless communication devices that can be purchased and "installed" at a commodity level, in the same mannor as cell phones now. Although these devices may be inefficent for some time, and we may not reach what might be considered a telepathic level of communication for many more years, yet the kind of text messaging now available on cell phoness cannot be far off. I can only begin to speculate at the impact this will have, but I would imagine the development of similar patterns as those noted with cell phones, only more extreme and completely ubiquitous. The bottom line is that it is human nature to communicate with others, and anything that can enable or expand this will have profound effects in the coming years.
And yes, the /. effect will have real, physical power and meaning.
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Functional Telepathy (Score:3)
by mattbelcher (matt.mattbelcher@com) on Wednesday July 31, @10:31AM (#3985945)
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Of all the "magic" powers, telepathy is the one I think we'll be able to simulate most accurately, and very soon. Suppose we merged cell phone technology with instant messaging buddy lists. Add a sub-vocal interface and a tiny earpiece and microphone, and you might as well be telepathic. (Albeit, for a limited number of daytime minutes!)
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Welcome to the modern world, U.S... (Score:3, Interesting)
by PetriWessman (orava@@@orava...org) on Wednesday July 31, @10:34AM (#3985984)
(User #584648 Info | http://www.orava.org/)
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It's nice to see the U.S. take notice of something that's an old phenomenon over here in wireless-happy Finland (and other parts of Europe). I remember first talking about this issue with friends years and years back. Practically everyone has had a mobile phone for so many years now that a lot of people don't even notice how much it has changed things. Little kids have mobile phones. Soon my cats will probably have one ;) For example, nobody agrees on an exact place/time to meet anymore. People just take a bus to the city center, and hook up with people while they're on the move. Likewise, people are totally used to being reachable all the time, and actually feel a bit cut off from society if their phone breaks or something. The same thing as with the Net and email, I guess. If you don't want to be available you turn your phone off or switch it to silent mode, but you want the option of being reachable to there. Quite amusing to see the States now start to reach this level and notice it. Not intended as a putdown, just as a statement - mobile tech is one area where many parts of Europe are still way ahead, very much due to GSM. Things will probably even out in the future. I write software for mobile messaging systems, so I have some idea of what I'm talking about, btw ;)
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One weak link and no automation would mean... (Score:3, Insightful)
by Rahga (richardh@rahga.com) on Wednesday July 31, @10:35AM (#3986001)
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One weak link and no automation would mean... potential for a lot of wasted energy.
Let's face it. I bet if poor old Prince William wanted his horde of money-and-power-hungry vultures off his back, all it would take is a few staff member or even a few defectors to infirltrate the network and fire off the occasional false alarm. If the level of sophistication in the group doesn't involve and automatic central server to relay these messages, then the wasted energy in communicating combined with the end result would probably see the group die off with ease....
Without guidance or leadership in such groups, any activities that can have negative consequences on those with power could likely be thwarted with ease.
Anyways, I personally live my life without a cell phone, and I love it. Of course, marriage and fatherhood mean that I don't have this need to feel my life with boring, unfullfilling noncompetitive social activity. In one level, I'm glad I don't have ammount of time to burn that these folks obviously do. On another level, a bit more time to pursue my own hobbies and goals would be nice...
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Idoru (Score:2, Interesting)
by f00Dave (f00Dave.bigfoot@com) on Wednesday July 31, @10:46AM (#3986121)
(User #251755 Info | http://personal.nbnet.nb.ca/daveg/opengl/)
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William Gibson's "Idoru" hit the nail on the head: it's insufficient merely to have the technology available, there needs to be a pre-existing group of interested parties (a "SIG" for all you old-timers =] ).
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this is new or news ? (Score:2)
by Archfeld (archfeld@hotmail.com) on Wednesday July 31, @11:47AM (#3986606)
(User #6757 Info | http://slashdot.org/)
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at 03:30 in the moring in ANY neighborhood, ANYTHING of remote interest will draw a bloody crowd. I worked MIDs as an EMT and policeman. The 64K ? was always HOW do they know and where do they come from ?
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People ARE nodes in a network. Always have been. (Score:4, Insightful)
by Ungrounded Lightning (rod@node.com) on Wednesday July 31, @11:50AM (#3986627)
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What happens when people become nodes on a network?
People ARE nodes in a network. They have been since before there was electronic communication. They have been since they were prehuman apes.
It's called "being a social animal."
It's why making friends who might engage in mutually-beneficial projects and getting such friends to introduce you to other such friends, is called "networking".
Engineering and analyzing the structure and emergent behavior of electronic communication netowrks has given us additional understanding of the behavior, even as the electronic networks themselves have aided and amplified the functioning of the social networks.
"Global village" was coined when the only ones with effective access to large-scale communication was the professional newscriers and gossips. But general access to directed communication enables a "global city" - with distinct boroughs of differing cultures and interests but without geographic limitations.
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Taking this to the next level... (Score:3, Interesting)
by Andy Dodd (atd7@cornell . e du) on Wednesday July 31, @12:00PM (#3986700)
(User #701 Info | http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/atd7/)
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There are already technologies that let a phone get a general idea of its location based on what tower it's talking to (Palm.net and the VII/i705 - why oh why doesn't CDMA data have this feature? And I don't think GSM has this sort of integration, partly because both data services were designed for phones possible with an external data device, not integrated solutions like the Kyocera 6035 or the Treo)
I see in the future a variation of IM software (Why use current IM solutions when you have SMS???) in which you mark yourself as saying, "I'm available" with possibly a little bit of personal info (age 18-25 or whatever), that shows up to anyone looking to find people in their immediate area. (Maybe defined as "my tower and adjacent x towers" since I believe the GPS capabilities in E-911 are on demand and NOT user controlled.)
New to a city? Take a bus to the city center and mark yourself available to meet people. (As opposed to the mentions of such activities existing already that require you to already have the phone # of the person you're messaging.)
People would be able to create "networks" on the fly that anyone could find and join into.
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Go to the source (Score:3, Informative)
by kellan1 (kellan(at)pobox.com) on Wednesday July 31, @12:09PM (#3986766)
(User #23372 Info | http://www.protest.net)
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Just a repackaging of what Rheingold himself wrote 2 weeks ago, Smart Mobs [edge.org], with a few amusing if poorly documented anecdotes thrown in. The original is more interesting.
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human contact? (Score:2, Insightful)
by beaverfever on Wednesday July 31, @12:31PM (#3986925)
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If I may quote a posting already listed as a troll:
"people who tend to use these new PDA technologies are seriously missing out on the more traditional forms of human contact."
I believe there is a lot of truth to this, and anyone who takes a good hard look at culture in San Francisco will see it. There are a lot of people here who know lots of people and always have a party to go to but their best friends are the ones they left behind in other towns and cities, the ones they met before social connectivity ruled their lives. Also, the connected culture, as illustrated in the article, is a culture of following, of never really going anywhere without prior review and approval - where is the discovery, adventure and education in that?
The fact that it is becoming normal to be frequently interupted by cell phone ringing and ignored by the people around you while they chat on cell phones could produce a social backlash. It has on a minor scale, but those who choose not to be totally connected by refusing PDAs and cell phones are more of an ignored anomoly right now.
It will be interesting to look back in ten or twenty years and see how much of this is just a trend for the moment (CB radio - what?) and how much sticks - tv is generally accepted as vacuous entertainment with few redeeming qualities and it's still going strong.
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Leaderless swarming at UCLA (Score:2)
by jamesmartinluther on Wednesday July 31, @01:05PM (#3987119)
(User #267743 Info | http://www.hsx.com/)
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I saw an early form of this when I was a student at UCLA in the early 90's, especially among Asian students who were more likely at that time to have cell phones.
The behavior began with a lot of evening calls going around among "friends" beginning with the key phrase: "what are you up to tonight?". Sooner or later there would be someone who was up to something! And that activity would start to become the "thing to be doing tonight". I would watch friends initiate (or participate in) the construction of a party or movie outing in minutes. When we got there, a small crowd was always waiting (conversing on cell phones of course). Heh.
Unfortunately, a big draw-back to this was that the smallest complaint in the "swarm net" would lead to a compromised outcome. I saw way too many dumb movies due to this effect, and thus I no longer swarm.
- James
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OK, fine. (Score:2)
by Dthoma on Wednesday July 31, @01:26PM (#3987240)
(User #593797 Info | http://goatse.cx/)
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So the military and police forces have a hard time coping with these people? Well, they do have strategies to counter it. Someone's already suggested sending false messages, but why not just intercept the calls people make so that you can see where the crowd is heading? Even though the whole gathering is like a small P2P network, since everyone will be sending similar messages (due to the snowball effect when the ringleader makes an announcement) all you have to do is listen to a couple of people and you can see what they're going to do. If you're desparate, then you could just jam the cellphone frequencies and they'll be split into a massive collection of isolated agents rather than a cohesive swarm. At which point you can move in with the water cannons.
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alternate reality (Score:2)
by g4dget on Wednesday July 31, @02:07PM (#3987539)
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Personal communication devices always allowed people to communicate easily and to coordinate their plans at the spur of the moment. As PCDs became widespread, they allowed their owners to converge rapidly in large groups, for purposes social or political. This must be in some alternate reality. In real life, "PCDs" are marred by lousy user interfaces, tiny keyboards, short battery lives, miniscule screens, low resolution, limited range, and incompatibilities.
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No-shows (Score:2)
by Mulletproof on Wednesday July 31, @03:39PM (#3988112)
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And where is the cell-phone radiation paranoia crowd when you need em...? But then, I'm not the expert on how much power these things broadcast. I'd imagine if it wasn't range you need to worry about, it's data integrity...
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evolution (Score:2)
by ProfKyne (professorkyne AT brataccas DOT com) on Wednesday July 31, @09:12PM (#3989602)
(User #149971 Info | http://erikprice.com/)
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Seriously, I have thought long and hard about the role of cell phones in society (yeah I was a cultural studies scholar in college), and I see it as a form of primitive telepathy. I'm not trying to be weird or joke around; if you really think about it -- cell phones give you instant communication with others. (Not the kind of telepathy where you can read others' minds, the kind where you can communicate instantly with other telepaths.)
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Smart Mobs, Swarms, and Flash Crowds
