One day humans and computers will merge into one beautiful new super life form รก la Battlestar Galactica. But that will undoubtedly end in some cataclysmic hellfire war that will redefine what it means to be truly human. This, thankfully, is still a long way off. Until the end days are upon us, isn't it fun watching technologies merge and reshape how people can communicate? My latest curiosity is a the site Utterz.com, which seems to up the ante on my beloved Twitter.com in the mobile posting game.
With Utterz you can post pictures, video, voice recordings and text straight from your mobile phone all via MMS which means no going online, no clunky cell phone browser and standard text messaging rates. At first glance I was in love because I mistakenly thought I could post my MMS messages straight to my blog/site/social network. I was wrong. Like Twitter you set up a profile page that houses all your Utterz and you can network with other Utter-ers. In order to post your MMS content you have to embed an Utter widget to receive and display your utterz on your personal blog/site/social network.
Check out my Frak montage Utter, I know... I got a little stage fright and couldn't think of anything to say... but the true nerds out there will smile with me.
The direct connection between Utter-ing and sexual health remains to be seen but suddenly there are amazing new vehicles for communication and public and private domains are merging. It is interesting to watch the technologies that will reshape these boundaries.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Monday, March 17, 2008
A Little Help From Our Friends
Dear Friends,
We need your support! We have entered our SexINFO project into the NetSquared Mashup Challenge and would love your vote. This could provide us some much-needed development support in growing the project.
Please take a second and vote for us at the NetSquared Mashup Challenge
Note: If you're not a TechSoup member, you'll need to register to vote. Thanks, it means the world to us.
Once logged in, click here for to vote for SexInfo then click "Vote" in upper right corner.
Thanks for your support.
- The ISIS, Inc. team
We need your support! We have entered our SexINFO project into the NetSquared Mashup Challenge and would love your vote. This could provide us some much-needed development support in growing the project.
Please take a second and vote for us at the NetSquared Mashup Challenge
Note: If you're not a TechSoup member, you'll need to register to vote. Thanks, it means the world to us.
Once logged in, click here for to vote for SexInfo then click "Vote" in upper right corner.
Thanks for your support.
- The ISIS, Inc. team
Friday, March 14, 2008
SMS and Computer Based Sex Ed in Nigeria
LearningAboutLiving.org is a computer based sex ed program for Nigerian youth. The site guides students and teachers through some of the rough puberty topics by offering conversation- starting texts and suggestions for activities. The topics for discussion range from: Body Image, Love/Friendship, Assertiveness and HIV/STIs. I do have to mention that though the site offers fodder for discussion the word condom never appears.
The really interesting portion of this curriculum is the text in feature. I would love to know how it works in a little more detail. But it seems that when students have questions they aren't comfortable asking an adult or in a group setting they can text their issue and receive a personalized response. In the first 2 months the service fielded 10,000 questions. I think it would be great to include the questions and responses on the site so students who didn't know how to frame their questions could learn from their peers.
The really interesting portion of this curriculum is the text in feature. I would love to know how it works in a little more detail. But it seems that when students have questions they aren't comfortable asking an adult or in a group setting they can text their issue and receive a personalized response. In the first 2 months the service fielded 10,000 questions. I think it would be great to include the questions and responses on the site so students who didn't know how to frame their questions could learn from their peers.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Reuters inSPOT snowball - and that's a good thing
On Valentine's Day Reuters touted inSPOT as another tool in the tool belt for putting the smack on rising syphilis rates in New York City. We agree, it's a sharp tool indeed.Quick to follow Reuters was the DC culture blog Heybeus who called us inSPOT creators "tech-savvy, crotch burny San Franciscan[s]." And we totally take that as a compliment.
And the snowball gained ground... another wink and a nod from Vermont and our own local wit, SF Weekly.
More buzz = more awareness about STD and HIV notification options = more responsibility taken!
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
1 in 4 Teen Girls has an STD
That is 1 in 4 girls here in the US. One in four of the teen girls that we see everyday- hanging out at the mall or walking home from school. These girls have clearly be done a grave disservice. These results come from a new CDC study released today that looked at the "combined national prevalence of common sexually transmitted diseases among adolescent girls." The numbers are staggering. Apparently, only roughly half the girls participating in the study acknowledged ever having sex. There is clearly some confusion about what sex is and how STDs are spread. In 2005 we see the first raise in teen birth rates in 15 years and now this study shows that we have group of confused and potentially unwell kids. What is to be done? Dare i point the finger at abstinence only education?
Friday, March 7, 2008
tech take-up and the dating curve
For the first two months after my mom upgraded her cell phone she would hang up on me every time I called. It wasn't that she didn't want to talk to me, it was that she couldn't figure out how her new phone worked. I always got an instant call back. Who can really blame her for not wanting to invest any energy into her phone. She can dial, and send me photos of dogs...and that's what's important.
But what happens when 50 and 60 somethings try out a new online dating site? I'm making an assumption here that the internet dating learning curve might be something like the cell phone learning curve for some older adults. It's a new way of communicating that hasn't always existed. Many dating websites are set up to be intuitive and facilitate quick communication via IM, text or internal email. Resorting to a good old fashioned phone call is not usually an option. Does this shake the boomers, or is everyone just adjusting?
Here are a few real life stories from two lovely ladies I know.
Case Study one: relative of friend, "Betty," 50s
Betty meets a nice man on Match.com. They start to exchange Match.com messages about having dinner together and Betty provides her phone number. "Bill" confirms by email that he would love to have dinner and waits for Betty's email about where. Meanwhile, Betty starts cooking dinner, gets all gussied up and waits for a phone call. They never meet.
Case Study two: relative of friend, "Anne," 60s
Anne signs up on eHarmony and learns how to search the profiles. She quickly gets confused by the prescripted stages of communication that eHarmony forces you through. After sending multiple stock messages with no replies, she abandons ship and goes on a date with a neighbor she met while walking her dogs. "How could I communicate anything personal about myself using that thing," she complained.
But there are success stories too, of course.
I regularly orchestrate multi-friend events entirely over text and things work out fine. I even have a friend who has never once talked to her boyfriend on the phone, only via text. But there is a learning curve for figuring out how to communicate on a dating site, via IM or text message (let alone figure out how to send and receive these messages). Are these skills becoming necessary for older single adults?
And this goes for all ages, but it seems that calling your date has become scarier now that you can send a text or email.
But what happens when 50 and 60 somethings try out a new online dating site? I'm making an assumption here that the internet dating learning curve might be something like the cell phone learning curve for some older adults. It's a new way of communicating that hasn't always existed. Many dating websites are set up to be intuitive and facilitate quick communication via IM, text or internal email. Resorting to a good old fashioned phone call is not usually an option. Does this shake the boomers, or is everyone just adjusting?
Here are a few real life stories from two lovely ladies I know.
Case Study one: relative of friend, "Betty," 50s
Betty meets a nice man on Match.com. They start to exchange Match.com messages about having dinner together and Betty provides her phone number. "Bill" confirms by email that he would love to have dinner and waits for Betty's email about where. Meanwhile, Betty starts cooking dinner, gets all gussied up and waits for a phone call. They never meet.
Case Study two: relative of friend, "Anne," 60s
Anne signs up on eHarmony and learns how to search the profiles. She quickly gets confused by the prescripted stages of communication that eHarmony forces you through. After sending multiple stock messages with no replies, she abandons ship and goes on a date with a neighbor she met while walking her dogs. "How could I communicate anything personal about myself using that thing," she complained.
But there are success stories too, of course.
I regularly orchestrate multi-friend events entirely over text and things work out fine. I even have a friend who has never once talked to her boyfriend on the phone, only via text. But there is a learning curve for figuring out how to communicate on a dating site, via IM or text message (let alone figure out how to send and receive these messages). Are these skills becoming necessary for older single adults?
And this goes for all ages, but it seems that calling your date has become scarier now that you can send a text or email.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Baring it All Online
Deciding when to unlink from a sig. other's blog or when to un-friend them on your various social networks is always a touchy topic. Everyone is guilty of a little internet snooping on a lost love at some point or other. So why not quit with the pretending and let that spurned loved one know exactly whats going on. Post it on your blog, uploaded it to youtube, embed it in every comment box from here to kingdom come. I'm just kidding that is no way to behave... but it was pretty funny when Sarah Silverman and Jimmy Kimmel did it:
Friday, February 29, 2008
A picture is worth a thousand words. Really?
The new online dating site Jiffr.com says "to hell with words we have pictures." In my mind I am flipping through the ridiculously plentiful profile pictures of myself littering the web. What am I saying with them I wonder? I would never ever ever put a picture of myself anywhere that wasn't flattering. In fact flattering is an understatement the only pictures I post are exceptional (for me.) So exceptional in fact that they fail at being accurate representations of me. Even the pictures that I am not physically in tend to serve the purpose of constructing my idealized life. So, Jiffr.com, the new image based dating site made me raise an eyebrow. Can you meet someone in the idealized image world and fall in love with the non-idyllic real them?
Here is the basic idea: You select 9 mate wooing photos from your Flickr account to represent you on Jiffr. Then you browse the photo selections of others and decide who you want to date. Then, if anyone you selected as date worthy also selects you, you'll receive an email on Thursday that schedules a date on Saturday at a preselected location. The emailing is all automated, so if you change your mind or need to reschedule its over-- your chance with that person is gone.
I haven't tried it out yet but plan on bullying one of my single friends into giving it a go. I just wonder how well the matches will work. On one hand it sounds like fun. Sort of like a mystery- where you leave little image clues about yourself and try to decipher someone else's. But then again its superficial nature makes me cringe. When the tag line of the site is "get a date without words" I have to wonder what in the world will you talk about on the date.
Here is the basic idea: You select 9 mate wooing photos from your Flickr account to represent you on Jiffr. Then you browse the photo selections of others and decide who you want to date. Then, if anyone you selected as date worthy also selects you, you'll receive an email on Thursday that schedules a date on Saturday at a preselected location. The emailing is all automated, so if you change your mind or need to reschedule its over-- your chance with that person is gone.
I haven't tried it out yet but plan on bullying one of my single friends into giving it a go. I just wonder how well the matches will work. On one hand it sounds like fun. Sort of like a mystery- where you leave little image clues about yourself and try to decipher someone else's. But then again its superficial nature makes me cringe. When the tag line of the site is "get a date without words" I have to wonder what in the world will you talk about on the date.
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