Nothing Ever Happens

Jun, my son, is two years old today. I’m so proud of him and Anja- and humble in front of life.

If you want send him a message - even if you don’t know him, or just want write him about the world we are living in today, or give an advice, or just anything he might find interesting when he grows up: jun.sv.nabergoj [at] gmail.com

Marshall McLuhan, the hugely influential guru of the mass media, wrote The Laws of Media Tetrads, which are comprised of four questions- four aspects or effects that apply, without exception, to all creations – intangible or tangible, abstract or concrete – of humankind. They are quoted here from McLuhan’s Laws of Media: The New Science.

First Probe: Enhance
“What does the artifact ENHANCE or intensify or make possible or accelerate? This can be asked concerning a wastebasket, a painting, a steamroller, or a zipper, as well as about a proposition in Euclid or a law of physics. It can be asked about any word or phrase in any language.”

Second Probe: Reverse
“When pushed to the limits of its potential (another complementary action), the new form will tend to reverse what had been its original characteristics. What is the REVERSAL potential of the new form?”

Third Probe: Obsolesce
“If some aspect of a situation is enlarged or enhanced, simultaneously the old condition or unenhanced situation is displaced thereby. What is pushed aside or OBSOLESCED by the new ‘organ’?”

Fourth Probe: Retrieval
“What recurrence or RETRIEVAL of earlier actions and services is brought into play simultaneously by the new form? What older, previously obsolesced ground is brought back and inheres in the new form?”

When applied to any “medium,” these questions help chart the medium’s story arc. The Tetrads help us to understand both the “thing” itself (be it a particular technology, business process, model or concept) and our collective response to it.

The questions are not to be considered sequentially, or in any particular order. The attributes of the four aspects are, in fact, complementary to one another. Their discovery requires careful consideration and observation of the artifact - be it tangible or intangible, an object or a concept - in relation to its context and environment: In McLuhan’s terms, consideration of the figure in relation to its ground.

BONUS for my readers:
Channeling McLuhan
The Wired Interview with the magazine’s patron saint.

I will be attending the Supernova 2008 conference. The theme is “Challenges of the Network Age” – and Esther Dyson (among the main speakers) suggests that the real challenge is human nature (Stop Spamming Esther: 7 Tips).

She told a brief anecdote about Conrad Hilton, founder of the Hilton Hotel chain, on the Tonight Show. Carson asked him, “You’ve played host to kings and queens, to captains of industry. Do you have any message for the world?” And Hilton replied, “Put the shower curtain inside the tub.”

Esther’s message: approaching things from the recipient’s perspective costs you nothing and means so much.

Twitter, the fledgling microblogging service, is evolving into a social media powerhouse to rival giants like Facebook. The San Francisco-based Twitter, which appears to be aiming for a new round of funding, is starting an “experimental” advertising program on its site in Japan.

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/may2008/tc20080514_269697.htm

eMarketer is revising its U.S. social network ad spending forecast, projecting that advertisers will spend $1.4 billion to place ads on online social networks this year, down from a previous projection of $1.6 billion. The change is due in part to a lack of successful ad models.

POZOR!

Danes sem v Mercatorjevi trgovini po dolgem času spet kupil kefir proizvajalca Kele (Krepko). Kefir mojega najljubšega hrvaškega proizvajalca je namreč že pošel. Kupil sem 3 lončke. Nemalo sem bil začuden, ko je dveletni sin s slamico preluknjal aluminijasti pokrovček lončka kefirja Krepko, da bi skozenj pil kefir, njegov najljubši mlečni proizvod, a se je samo močno nakremžil. Medtem pa sem sam že odprl svoj, drugi lonček kefirja Krepko.

ZGROŽEN sem zagledal sivo obarvani kefir Krepko, s črnimi zrni. Ko sem povonjal kefir Krepko, sem takoj uganil okus čiste nafte. ?!? Takoj sem odrinil sinčka, odprl še njegov lonček kefirja Krepko, in našel popolnoma enako presenečenje..(upam) nič ga ni popil.

Klic na inšpektorat ni vrnil (še) nobenega rezultata, večkrat smo poskusili priklicati tudi vodstvo Mlekarne Krepko (podjetje Kele & Kele), da bi se pozanimali o novi oktanski liniji mlečnih izdelkov Krepko, a nismo uspeli priklicati nikogar. Vas bom sproti obveščal- I WILL WIN.

Posreduj mojo zgodbo naprej medijem, svojim prijateljem, družini in sodelavcem.

P.S. Zanimivo, da je ob astronomsko visokih cenah nafte okus po nafti dosegel tudi tako množične izdelke kot je kefir Krepko, cena kefirja Krepko Nafta pa se sploh ne razlikuje od cen ostalih kefirjev.

MySpace, Facebook and Google are announcing similar-sounding moves over the past week to open up their sites to external applications. The moves suggest that social-media tools and services will spread throughout the Web, say observers. Social networks will be “like air.”

http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=127012

As television, newspapers and other media are digitized and move to the Internet, Google’s advertising system will become the financial platform on which many of these businesses depend, according to industry observers. Google is “sitting on a goldmine.” Its momentum “seems unstoppable.”

 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ae08cfd8-2051-11dd-80b4-000077b07658.html