Reflections on Iran and Facebook

“Nearly half of Iran’s 46 million eligible voters are under age 30″

Elham Khatami’s article for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Facebook brings big changes to Iran) and Rahimi & Gheytanchi’s article for openDemocracy.net (The Politics of Facebook in Iran) paint a fascinated picture of a nation entrenched in a power struggle between a ruling elite and the social-media-enabled masses. After reading about how Iran maintains such a tight grip in Internet access and permissable content with harsh measures (including death) for outed detractors or deviants (in the eyes of Iranian law), it puts citizen social media in a wholey different class from the US. Here we relish in our freedoms of expression and press, embracing the irregular, niche, and controversial. In Iran simply stating non-heterosexual preferences online can get you killed.

This background certainly casts Iran’s recent (February 2009) unblocking of Facebook in dubious light. Is this the work of an enlightened government seeking to get their young citizens involved in politics? Or is it merely a new tool in the government’s arsenal of tracking and intimidation? Rahimi and Gheytanchi certainly lean towards the latter. Their depiction of President Ahmedinejad’s moves to block the Facebook accounts of rival politicians Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, coincidentally noted as Facebook outages, lends weight to that leaning.

Reflections on MobileActive.org

Mobile phones have truly changed our world.  With amazing penetration through both the developed and developing world, emerged and established markets, the cell phone’s ubiquity is the actualization (and beyond!) of sci-fi writing from even 10 years ago.

MobileActive.org’s “Mobiles in Citizen Media” post is a poster-child for a pillar of the MCDM program.  The rise of amateur reporting and the tools which contribute to an amazing ease of access to an engaged audience has profoundly affective journalism.  This surge of content has torn apart a previously-untouchable medium and put massive news corporations out of business.

Reflections on Khoja and Hughes & Lonie

I found both of the articles utterly fascinating.  They are clearly written as triumphant proofs of concept that undoubtedly have a hidden agenda of providing public documentation to encourage further efforts.  Or at least that’s what I would do!

One thing that really caught my eye was how the M-PESA project required some organizational juggling to offset the fact that the project wasn’t directly contributing to increasing shareholder value, therefore it was of dubious value for the organization.  The expected use case for humanity was obvious, but the business model was potentially at a direct conflict with the overall corporate direction.  Well, not completely in conflict, as the project was incubated and finally launched.  But still in enough conflict that the project had to be buried in R&D.

Reflections on The Economist’s “Mobile Marvels”

“Eureka moments”, an article from the “Mobile Marvels” special report from The Economist, calls out four key factors that contributed to the explosion of mobile phones from “yuppie plaything” to “the single most transformative tool for development”. I found them pivotal in understanding exactly why mobile phones have spread so far so fast.

1. The Emergence of Global Technological Standards

The creation and widespread adoption of the Global Standard for Mobile (GSM) format allowed telecom companies a global economy of scale with building networks. It allowed cell networks to be created that would work across phone carriers and devices, building a single (well, a couple) massive infrastructure instead of requiring carriers to build their own networks.

More Reflections on Ling & Donner

While the mobile phone is a device used for instrumental activities (‘When are you coming home?, ‘Where are you now?,’ etc.), it is also very clearly a fashion item.  In this regard it is to some degree a symbol of group association.  New phones have functionality that makes older models seem clunky and out of touch.  A lot of fuss can be made in association with the launching of a particularly new type of handset. (pp 101-102)

Image courtesy of mobilegazette.com

My family had an early Motorola car phone in 1990; it stayed in my dad’s car as an emergency means of communicating with home or help when he was on the road.  We had just moved into a new house in 1991 when my younger brother was hospitalized with appendicitis.  It was a late night affair full of drama – his appendix was removed moments before bursting.  The following night he stayed at the hospital; since our landline hadn’t been set up yet, I remember my parents sleeping on their mattress on the floor with the car phone at hand.  Our emergency phone was our lifeline to the hospital.

In 1997 I upgraded my pager to a cell phone as a new means of staying in touch with my future wife.  It was a novel and slightly nonsensical upgrade, but by 1999 I was using it daily for business.  With a sales job at the time, my office number forwarded to my cell phone when I was on the road (which was the majority of my week).  My clients, associates, and family could always reach me, regardless of my location.  It was a critical part of my business toolset.

Fast forward ten years and I have my Blackberry at hand seven days a week.  I use it for directions in foreign countries, Googling word definitions, and staying connected to my work email when away from my laptop.  In fact, I’m so connected to my phone that I have to physically enforce “off time” on the weekends so that I can unplug from the constant flow of communication from work.