Books as Social & Cultural Signifiers

Khoi talkes today about Reading “Game of Thrones” in the Real World:

One thing I had completely forgotten about is how communal popular books can be. A few people have spotted “A Game of Thrones” in my pocket or saw me reading it on the subway and then started friendly conversations with me about it, something that never would have happened if I were reading it on my phone, where every book is effectively invisible to everyone but me.

I’ve often thought about this unique digital problem: Once we go to a completely digital delivery system of long-form reading material, including books, how do we signal cultual cues to others? How will my friends communicate that he reads both the New Yorker and the Economist without annoyingly working into conversation stories he’s read from the magazines? We will no longer have a physical bookshelf.

We can look to music, as CD’s are falling out of fashion and only the most obsessed still buy LP-records. Going to live concerts, browsing Pitchfork and listening to Pandora radio seem to be the new cultural signifiers. Record of these events are now being recorded on people’s Facebook wall, blogs and twitter stream (don’t get me started about recording live music with your phones).

I wonder if Pinterest-like apps are the new bookshelf.

Facebook’s Menlo Park Campus – A Figure Ground View

An organization’s culture is reflected everywhere, especially in office space. Today Facebook decorated its roof with a 42-Foot wide QR code, which while silly, but I was struck by how layout of Facebook’s campus (which used to be Sun Microsystems) resembles an ancient hill-top town.

Below, I created a series of figure-ground studies of the Facebook Campus, illustrating different realities:

An open letter to Twitter on The @towerbridge Affair

What Adam said:

The first important recognition inscribed in @towerbridge is that we can reconceive of the built environment as a field of available informational resources. The second is that this can be done very simply, and at surprisingly little cost — crucial, when the established technology vendors are heavily invested, and want to invest others, in heroic “smart city” infrastructure.

Tom’s third insight, though, is even more foundational than either of these two. It’s that urban actors like bridges might speak to people on the same terms, and in the same voice, as we use amongst ourselves. Simply, respectfully, usefully…and without any of the obfuscation and mystery that’s, let’s face it, inherent for most people in terms like “networked urban object” and “common messaging bus.” In this sense, @towerbridge as Tom used it clearly established best practice in my field.