Being able to alert people to your location really isn’t all that useful, unless you are nearby to another person, and a social interaction becomes possible. The real purpose of these networks is to actually enable real-world connections by digitally mapping a person’s whereabouts and comparing them to others. Instead of having to call people to tell them where you are (how antiquated!), you instead just have your geo-spatial location tracked, and have your friends become alerted to this location in real-time. In essence, these services will allow us to unify our virtual and meatspace connections, thereby enhancing both!¹

Differentiate…

But why hasn’t this already happened? Most of the social networks you belong to today happen exclusively online. Facebook, Myspace, etc. allow you to connect with people you don’t know, who may share interests with you or even a common background, but they certainly don’t promote—except in rare instances—actual physical connections. ² This has created, what many critics have pointed out as, a disconnected relationship to the physical world, not an enhanced one. But that is really only half the story, the 1st half of differentiation.

Just as a new cell must differentiate itself from an old one while replicating, so too has the internet differentiated itself from normal ways of worldly communication. And just as computers are vastly superior to the human brain at certain types of computation, and are becoming more so each day with the continued development of artificial intelligence, the internet allows world-wide collective communication at far greater speeds and with far greater collaborative potential. What is web 2.0 if not a greater tapping of the internet’s global communication potential?

…then Integrate

The 2nd half of the story is one of integration, of coming together, of unifying at higher and more complex levels. We are seeing the beginnings of internet technologies that are beginning to reach back into our physical lives, to bring the stupendous benefits of lightening-quick, highly collaborative, data-rich systems back into social lives.

The result, eventually, will be geo-social networks that track where we are (instead of us having to do so manually) will notify us not only of pre-existing friends that are close, but also of people we might like to meet based on a set of shared interests, friendships, and passions. We’ll begin to be able to meet people that we didn’t even know we wanted to meet. That’s human relationships 2.0—to extend the 2.0 metaphor farther then I probably should.

All new technologies begin as crude and slightly disconnected from the rest of their environments. We can think back only a couple of decades to massive mainframe computers and big brick-like cellphones that almost no one used. The internet, and the social networks that we find on it today are kind of like that. But with geo-social networking on the rise, and a host of other useful, more fully integrated information technologies, we are going to find out lives more deeply enriched by these things, not less so. In the end their integration will become so tight, as it already has become for many in my generation, that we really won’t be able to distinguish any difference between the virtual world and the real world. It will just be the world that we interact, love, work, and play in.

1. You can of course choose to not have your location broadcast. When the technology becomes more mature the only choice you’ll likely be making is whether to be “on the radar” or “off the grid”. Most everything else will be handled automatically for you.
2. Online dating services like Match.com are definitely an exception. Just wait until they start harnessing geo-social networking technologies! You’ll be standing at the corner of Pearl and 14th and will suddenly be receiving a date request over your cell phone from the woman across the street—and neither of you may have initiated the date! Blind dating on steroids.

And check out the sweet new embed player that we just developed for Falling Fruit! You can now embed any of our episodes on your site/blog.

I found this video on the IEET Cyborg Buddha Project, which is run by James Hughes, Mike LaTorra, and George Dvorsky. This is an awesome site, with some fantastic folks who are running it. Here is a little info about the project in case you’re interested:

The three of us are launching the IEET Cyborg Buddha Project to combine our efforts and promote discussion of the impact that neuroscience and emerging neurotechnologies will have on happiness, spirituality, cognitive liberty, moral behavior and the exploration of meditational and ecstatic states of mind.

I’m drooling…

Falling Fruit is one among several of the first netcasting media companies. Revision3, based out of San Francisco, is another such company who are paving the way and doing it quite well. They focus primarily on technology and offer all of their content in a video format. What’s so interesting about Revision3, and why I wanted to dedicate a post to them is that their project is similar to ours in many ways, but also diverges in some unique ways.

Age: While I’m not sure the average age at Revision3, it seems like most of their employees are in their 20s and 30s (with the exception perhaps of their new CEO Jim Louderback who is probably in his 40s … Sorry Jim if I’m mistaken). The median age here at Falling Fruit is 25, and so while I suspect we have a bit younger crew, we are both definitely younger than the ol’ TWiT crew. Sorry Leo.

Work Culture: Perhaps related to their youth, I’ve been intrigued to see what the culture is like over at Revision3. Most of the information I’ve received is from watching their video show on the inner-workings of the company, The Revision3 Gazette (see video above). They seem like they have a very humorous, enjoyable, and flexible work-environment. That isn’t to say that work isn’t happening, cause it’s obvious they are getting plenty done, but just that it is far more laid back than your average corporate environment. This is something that has naturally arisen here at Falling Fruit as well, and may even have something to do with start-ups that are founded by millennials.

Geekiness: Another commonality, and this may have a lot to do with the medium of both our businesses, is that we are both extremely geeky (in the good sense). I’d actually go so far as to say that Revision3 is just a bit more geeky than us with regards to Technology. But where we lack in technology we make up for in…

Self-Actualization: Part of the reason that we founded Falling Fruit was to provide media that helped to empower, connect, and inform people who have inclusive understandings of the world around them and want to make a bigger difference in their lives. Our mission was born out of a deep motivation to serve the world, to grow in the process, and build a healthy and profitable business. That being said, I haven’t seen much evidence (so far) that Revision3 has a similar mission. While I’m sure that some of their employees are conscious in this way, the major thrust of the company doesn’t seem to be that. Granted, I’m sure they have some vision about changing the face of media that is only one small part of what we are trying to do here at Falling Fruit.

Part of the way this manifests in our company culture, is with regards to different practices that we do. We are a group of health-nuts, who live off of organic foods, use biofeedback devices, lift weights, and will eat just about anything (well, some of us). Many of us are also committed meditators. We hold a monthly meditation retreat, which half of our staff usually attend. We are also into self-development, enlightened communication techniques, and hacky sack. How does hacky sack relate to self-actualization? If you have to ask, you obviously have no clue!

I’m very grateful to be helping pioneer the business of netcasting with such companies as Revision3 & TWiT. In many ways they are our role models and are compatriots. In other ways, I think they are missing an important dimension to what might revolutionize the business world, and that is having a business that explicitly aims to wake up, and in the process help the rest of the world wake up.

Conscious Business represents the leading edge of business innovation. This podcast looks at the emerging world of conscious business and examines the strategies, leaders, cultural conditions and new markets that are driving its evolution. Listen to dialogues on revolutionary topics with influential thought leaders in all walks of business and professional development.

We will soon be launching several new shows on a number of different topics, with our aim being to create a community of listeners who can appreciate a wide-variety of programming with the intent of using insights in any one area to apply directly to their areas of interest. If you haven’t already, check it out and then let me know what you think…

Twine “ties it all together”

Twine pools and connects all types of information in one convenient online location, including contacts, email, bookmarks, RSS feeds, documents, photos, videos, news, products, discussions, notes, and anything else. Users can also author information directly in Twine like they do in weblogs and wikis. Twine is designed to become the center of a user’s digital life.

The Start of Web 3.0

“Web 3.0 is best-defined as the coming decade of the Web, during which time semantic technologies will help to transform the Web from a global file-server into something that is more like a worldwide database. By making information more machine-understandable, connected and reusable, the Semantic Web will enable software and websites to grow smarter,” said Spivack. “Yahoo! was the leader of Web 1.0. Google is the leader of Web 2.0. We don’t yet know who will be the leader of Web 3.0. It’s a bold new frontier, but Twine is a strong first step, and we’re very excited about it.”

It remains to be seen whether or not this will be a revolutionary service, but I suspect that theoretically it is heading in the right direction, and if web 3.0 is anything, it will be about integration. On top of Twine looking like a potentially revolutionary service, the founder and CEO of the company, Nova Spivak, sounds like a pretty amazing dude:

Mr. Spivack has a long-time interest in cognitive science, artificial intelligence, emergent computation, knowledge management and the emerging Semantic Web. As a grandson of management guru Peter F. Drucker, Mr. Spivack shares his family’s heritage of interests in management theory, nonprofits, and knowledge work. In addition, he has been a student of Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, art and culture for nearly 20 years and has pursued this interest extensively in monasteries, refugee camps and communities in Nepal, India, Europe and the USA. Mr. Spivack focuses his philanthropic activities on helping to fund the preservation of Tibet’s unique wisdom culture as a world-heritage treasure for the benefit of future generations.

A philosopher, Tibetan Buddhist, and the grandson of Peter Drucker!? I’ve got to meet this guy.

Episode #4 of The Techsattva was just released:

In this episode I speak with Neuroscientist and meditator Daniel Rizzuto. We discuss the intersection between contemplation, science, and technology, including the leading-edge of Neural feedback and it’s relationship to state awareness and state management.

Daniel R. is a friend of mine who I met via another Daniel, Daniel Ingram. I really enjoyed having this geeky conversation (of which this episode is only the first half) and appreciate his willingness to talk Neuroscience and meditation. I’m hoping to get him on Buddhist Geeks as well, and delve even more deeply into this endlessly fascinating intersection of disciplines.

Today, I launched a personal netcast, which I’m calling the Techsattva. The Techsattva attempts to make sense of several systems of thought at once, including contemplative practice, conscious business, trans-humanism, technology, psychology, and more. By denying the completeness of any one system of thought, theory, or ideology the Techsattva hopes to step back far enough from all of these theories to get a view of connections that exist between them.

In the first episode I spoke with Ryan Oelke, executive producer of Falling Fruit TV, and productivity geek extraordinaire. We discuss the newly released iPhone and its impact on personal productivity, especially as it relates to David Allen’s Getting Things Done and Mark Hurst’s Bit Literacy. We end the discussion comparing the notion of emptiness in Bit Literacy with the understanding of emptiness or sunyata in the Mahayana Buddhist tradition.

The next couple of episodes will explore the topics of state management, meditation, and Buddhist economics. Check it out!