Lifestreaming and your Federated Identity

Lifestreaming is a term that was coined by Eric Freeman and David Gelernter at Yale University in the mid-1990s to describe "...a time ordered stream of documents that functions as a diary of your electronic life, every document you create and every document other people send you is stored in your lifestream." The oldest posts or the tail of your stream contains documents from the past and more recent documents are toward the present. These are atifacts such as electronic mail, pictures, movies, voice mail, reminders, calendar items, to do lists etc. Today most of us have information scattered all around the internet, or now known by its metaphor as 'the cloud'.

How do you manage your identity and logins to all these resources? You have many more than you may think. Your bank, insurers, travel company, the government, online stores etc and thats not to mention life streaming services like:

Bebo - Delicious - Digg - Diigo - Facbook - Flickr - LinkedIn - Orkut - Twitter - Tumblr - Blogger - fblike - Google - Yahoo - FriendFeed - Youtube - Last.fm - Plazes

What we all have now is a federated identity or the virtual reunion, or assembled identity and this information is stored across multiple distinct identity management systems. Sometimes these are linked together by a common token, usually a user name if you use a common one for multiple systems or services. You are authenticated across multiple systems or even organisations. Your identity is distributed and accessible.

Not everyone has a constant flow of their recorded information posted both online and offline and its a mistake to think about this by limiting the concept your digital life as only a sum of the feeds you publish. Flickr and Youtube are ways of displaying your life in the offline world that may be there forever.

Sunrise, Old Timbers and Dog Fights

Sunrise from Clarkes Point Sydney Harbour today

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ ISO 200, f2.8, 13mm, 5 images various shutter speeds and exposure values compiled to a HDR by Photomatix Pro
A standard single exposure of the sun silhouetting the city and the harbour bridge.

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ ISO 200, f2.8, 13mm, 1/5000 sec

Old timbers are part of the remains of ship repair workshops and a dry dock that were established here at Clarkes Point in 1884 by removing 20,000 tons of sandstone. When it opened it was the largest in Australia. The peak periods of activity were in the two World Wars, when up to 1,500 workers were employed here. It closed in 1959 and Clarkes Point became a public reserve in 1963.

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ ISO 200, f2.8, 11mm, 5 images various shutter speeds and exposure values compiled to a HDR by Photomatix Pro
Then it was off to a park in Five Dock as Hermione is s little nervous around water and prefers land based sports. Like palm tree chewing.

Nikon D300, Nikkor 35mm f2 @ ISO 200, f2.0, 1/1000 sec

If you take her stuff she just might attack too, as she is shown doing below.

Nikon D300, Nikkor 35mm f2 @ ISO 200, f2.0, 1/800 sec

After she was satisfied she had won it was time for a well deserved rest in the shade.

Nikon D300, Nikkor 35mm f2 @ ISO 200, f2.0, 1/1000 sec

Christmas At the Sydney QVB

The Queen Victoria Building at 455 George Street, Sydney known as 'the QVB' was designed by George McRae and completed in 1898 on the old Sydney markets site.

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ ISO 200, f2.8, 16mm, 1/25 sec

This year they have a Swarovski Christmas tree adorned with thousands of Swarovksi crystals and over 60,000 lights reaches from its base on the ground level to level 3 and the dome.

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ ISO 400, f2.8, 14mm, 1/50 sec

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ ISO 200, f2.8, 16mm, 1/60 sec

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ ISO 200, f2.8, 16mm, 1/60 sec

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ ISO 200, f2.8, 14mm, 1/25 sec
Looking down on the central staircase in the Eastern side / Middle of the QVB.

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ ISO 200, f2.8, 16mm, 1/20 sec
Looking through the Romanesque arches East on level 2

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ ISO 200, f2.8, 16mm, 1/40 sec

Even the guide dog tin was a stunning wood carving antique!

Nikon D300, Nikkor 35mm f2 @ ISO 200, f2.0, 1/40 sec

The Romanesque architecture was achieved by stonemasons, plasterers, and stained window artists and was originally used as a concert hall then city library and office spaces. This expand to boutique coffee shops, offices, showrooms, tailors, cloth traders, hairdressers and florists.

Nikon D300, Nikkor 35mm f2 @ ISO 200, f2.0, 1/40 sec
A feature experience on level 5 aside from the many coffee shops, like above is the palatial Tea Room (follow link)

Stairs and antique lift well looking down.

Nikon D300, Nikkor 35mm f2 @ ISO 200, f2.0, 1/20 sec
Looking up those same stairs.

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ ISO 200, f2.8, 16mm, 1/10 sec
Some of the plaster moulding that adorns the arches.

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ ISO 200, f2.8, 16mm, 1/15 sec

The dominant feature is the centre dome, consisting of an inner glass dome and an exterior copper sheathed dome. Stained glass windows and the Romanesque architecture is dominant throughout the building with the original 19th century staircase alongside the dome as well as arches, pillars, balustrades and the intricate tiled floors.

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ ISO 200, f2.8, 16mm, 1/50 sec

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ ISO 200, f2.8, 16mm, 1/20 sec

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ ISO 200, f2.8, 16mm, 1/25 sec
The Country Road store.

Nikon D300, Nikkor 35mm f2 @ ISO 200, f2.0, 1/160 sec
Looking down at the main entrance from level 3

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ ISO 200, f2.8, 14mm, 1/60 sec

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ ISO 400, f2.8, 14mm, 1/50 sec
Besides the intricate stained glass work on the main facade, like this central panel, there is stained glass panels above each shop. Each level has its own distinct design that is the same all across that level for every shop.

Nikon D300, Nikkor 35mm f2 @ ISO 200, f2.0, 1/160 sec
This is the level 3 design

Nikon D300, Nikkor 35mm f2 @ ISO 200, f2.0, 1/320 sec

This is the level 2 design

Nikon D300, Nikkor 35mm f2 @ ISO 200, f2.0, 1/250 sec

This is the lower Ground design

Nikon D300, Nikkor 35mm f2 @ ISO 200, f2.0, 1/200 sec

Outside the QVB, on Town Hall Place, facing The Town Hall are the Royal Wishing Well and Queen Victoria's statue. Source

What you talkin about 'a cat'??

Speaking of Retro

Speaking of memories and the last post, I found this image while going through my Adobe Lightroom Catalogue, its of a cat asleep in 'cat' heaven. I captured this image on Phi Phi Island off Phuket Thailand in 2002. Go figure?? Absolute luxury and decadence is available for cats here too ;-)

Mungo Tree

Mungo National Park is an isolated national park in the south west of New South Wales about 75 kilometres south east of Pooncarie NSW and 110 km north east of Mildura, Victoria. The main feature of Mungo National Park is Lake Mungo, an ancient dry lake, that dried up about 10,000 years ago. Mungo National Park is most significant for the archeological remains which have been discovered there, the remains of Mungo Man found on the shore of Lake Mungo is the oldest human remains discovered in Australia. These remains were discovered beneath the 'Walls of China', a series of low crescent shaped mounds formed by wind erosion on the South eastern edge of the dry lake. Its along this feature I found a solitary tree in the early 1980's and photographed it with my Olympus OM10 film camera.

Olympus OM10, Olympus Zuiko 50mm f/1.4

This image was entered into a photography contest by me at the Mildura Regional Art Gallery and although it won no prize it was awarded an 'honourable mention'. I have no recollection or record of any camera settings or what the term honourable mention signified.

Manly and the Wormhole

Manly is just 20 minutes from Sydney’s CBD and sits on a peninsula surrounded on three sides by the Pacific Ocean and Sydney Harbour. Manly was so named after the confidence and ‘manly behaviour’ displayed by a group of local Aborigines in Manly Cove by Australia’s first Governor, Captain Arthur Phillip in 1788. Freshwater Beach is the first beach North of Manly on the Peninsular. Harbord was renamed Freshwater in January 2008. There is a tunnel linking Manly and Freshwater beaches which was built and blasted out by some of the Freshwater locals and fishermen. Manly and Freshwater are now connected though the sandstone headland by the cave and a rough walkway. The pathway requires a bit of mild climbing ability but if you are steady on your feet its an easy journey. Source.

From the Queenscliff Headland looking back to Manly

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ ISO 200, f2.8, 11mm, 1/800 sec

The houses blend in with the environment

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ ISO 200, f8, 11mm, 1/2000 sec

Approaching the 'wormhole' you can see the entrance near the centre of the image.

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ ISO 200, f2.8, 11mm, Photomatix Pro HDR

Looking in towards Freshwater Beach

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ ISO 200, f2.8, 11mm, 1 image Photomatix Pro HDR

Inside the Wormhole looking North

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ ISO 200, f2.8, 11mm, 9 images, Photomatix Pro HDR

Looking behind back to Manly

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ ISO 200, f2.8, 11mm, 9 images, Photomatix Pro HDR

The Freshwater end bathed in the morning sunrise

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ ISO 200, f8, 11mm, Photomatix Pro HDR

Sunrise

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 @ ISO 200, f8, 11mm, 1/200 sec

Some of the locals were quite 'Crabby'!

Nikon D300, Nikkor 70-200mm f2.8 @ ISO 200, f8, 200mm, 1/80 sec

Early morning swim

Nikon D300, Nikkor 70-200mm f2.8 @ ISO 200, f8, 70mm, 1/640 sec

While On A Stroll Today

I snapped these three today while strolling with Hermione on the way to the shops a good 2Km from home and there are a lot of gardens in between, so I took my D300 with the new favorite lens the NIKKOR 35mm f2.

Nikon D300, Nikkor 35mm f2 @ ISO 200, f2.8, 1/8000 sec

Nikon D300, Nikkor 35mm f2 @ ISO 200, f2, 1/8000 sec

Nikon D300, Nikkor 35mm f2 @ ISO 200, f2, 1/4000 sec

Nikon D300, Nikkor 35mm f2 @ ISO 200, f2, 1/3200 sec

Nikon D300, Nikkor 35mm f2 @ ISO 200, f2, 1/6400 sec

Market Research and Social Media

Do you use twitter lists? Twitter Lists are groups you make and is a new way to organise the people you’re following or find new people. Its a way for you to collect together other users on Twitter into groups so that you can get an overview of what they are all tweeting. These Twitter streams give you a snapshot of the list by viewing that list’s page. Lists allow you to organise the people you’re following into groups that make sense to you, and even to add people you’re not following.

This got me to thinking about developing a capability for using social media for market research. The Internet is fundamentally changing how market research and data collection is done. Using social media tools to ask questions is part of a broader trend called crowd sourcing and is tapping into the collective intelligence of the public. Low cost online survey tools like Survey Monkey make it easy to design, and conduct survey research. Even easier is using social media sites and tools to ask questions and bloggers have long used their blogs to ask questions of their audience, but if you don't blog you can still ask questions online.

LinkedIn has a section where users can ask questions and Twitter can also be used for market research in addition to getting a lot of answers and good information if the number of Twitter users following you big enough. Used by companies like Innocentive and Amazons Mechanical Turk which uses crowd sourcing to solve corporate research and other task oriented problems.

New third party services like Brizzly have a fun approach to understanding the world's trends. Brizzly allows you to see why topics are trending on Twitter, and edit their descriptions yourself. No longer wonder why a certain event or company is suddenly in the news.

Speaking of research I have just read a very interesting book, The Abc Of Xyz: Understanding The Global Generations by Mark McCrindle and Emily Wolfinger. With marketers so interested in generational attitudes the book makes the tidy little definition of what a generation is, 'generations are people of a comparable life stage and age who's attitudes were shaped by the same developments, events and trends'. This short synopsis from the publisher "The Abc Of Xyz is designed for educators, business managers and parents who want a brief and useful introduction to Australia's living generations and how they interact. It begins by exploring what a generation is, how its definition has changed, and the trends that are emerging for the future. It goes on to examine specific generational conflict in schools, home and the workplace, and the ways in which they can be understood and resolved. Interspersed with useful tables and figures, the book also offers insights into how our generations compare to their counterparts in Japan, the US and even Finland, and what might lie beyond Z". ISBN: 9781742230351