There’s been a furor about the geo-location information collected by default by iPhone running iOS4 and above (see Read Write Web’s – Stalk Yourself: Use R to Analyze Your iPhone Location Data) because there’s at least two points of view about the information, probably more.

By the way, this application is not in the iTunes App store, and you’d have to follow the instructions in  to get the information from your iPhone (assuming you have one) into this mapping application.

I see this in a larger context, the information being collected about our geo-location can be shared (when we want to) or just stored securely (if we don’t want to share it) but what people do with the information is a different story.

It’s an example of how technology complicates life by giving people more choices than they have had, but also more burdens – because you have to consider not only is the information about your location being collected constantly, but what some people might do with it, including the government, your employer or just about anyone who has their own agendas.

Privacy is dead – but it’s been dead for a while anyway, so this revelation about iPhone location data  isn’t much of a surprise … what is  a surprise  is the information being collected on us is not encrypted or otherwise secure.  That’s scary, at least , to some people.

Should we all be scared, or just accept that privacy is dead, and try to re-educate society to be more accepting about what people say vs. what they actually do (IE: where they say they have been vs. where they actually went, and so on).  This is a difficult nut to crack.

I also read about something that caught my eye with Ultraviolet light – as it turns out I often use the term “Ultraviolet Data” in my writings but this thing with Ultraviolet light, above, is different; instead, it’s a form of self healing materials where the healing or repair gets activated by Ultraviolet light being applied to the object/material as detailed in CrunchGear – Self-Healing UV-Sensitive Material May Soon Coat Your Devices.

In yet another interesting story – there’s a way to cut down noise by 90% by using Green Glue (Huh?!) as shared in TreeHugger -Green Glue Cuts Noise Transmission by 90%. In Social Media Listening there’s usually a lot of noise in the data – so I can really relate to the “noise factor” – and for certain segments like Pharma, 90% is underestimating the noise levels.  Generally speaking, we want to eliminate noise and focus on signal.    Everything in life is full of correspondences, so where we strive to eliminate noise in data, we should also strive to do the same thing in our living and work spaces.   According to TreeHugger:

But the biggest complaint that people have about multifamily living is noise. That’s why Green Glue is so interesting: They claim that it cuts noise transmission up to 90%.

 

Green Glue works by “decoupling”, “or mechanically separating the two sides of a wall to make it harder for sound to pass through the wall. It was developed by a home theater installer who was unhappy with sound proofing systems, particularly at low frequencies. He consulted with a research and development firm specializing in viscoelastic materials, who came up with the stuff. It’s not cheap; a typical room uses three to five cases at $ 160 a pop. It also seems extremely wasteful to sell it in caulking tubes; it takes two for single sheet of drywall. Doing one room means throwing thirty tubes in the garbage. But they do sell it in pails as well.

On the other hand, most methods of sound control involve mechanical systems like resilient channels, that are often poorly installed, and allow flanking noise around the edges. This stuff seals it up tight. Green Glue also has one of the most thorough and

What’s interesting to me is how something as simple as “Green Glue” can do that – solve the noise problem we all face    Is a possible solution for noisy data lie in some fundamental approach change, just as the the solution to noisy apartments rests with using a different material between the walls including Green Glue?  Just a thought – didn’t mean to get all philosophical … but I see the relationships between apparently disparate things in my own way and that has helped to inform my writing and they way I think and view the world.

Finally, I read in JaTIN’s blog that Most SEOs Feel Google Webmaster Tools Is Not Accurate but I wonder how many have actually tried Google Webmaster Tools in any kind of serious way?   One reason why people who do SEO might feel Webmaster Tools isn’t effective is the information isn’t really used by many other third party tools and platforms; the only integration I know of is with Google Analytics.

And it may be that people do not tend to understand what they do not use.  We see the same thing in Social Listening and Social Media Analytics and I spend a considerable amount of time in my book discussing why people who do not understand the data being collected, can not effectively talk to it.

Take that Geo-Data being collected on iPhones that I began this post with … suppose you wanted to create a service for clients that helps them track where their audiences actually are and what brand messaging they may have seen. I can see some communications / PR types salivating on that kind of offering … yet, I’ve maintained, and made a strong argument in my book that “the medium is the message” – if you don’t understand how the data is collected and why … and can’t visualize just how it can be interacted with or interpreted,  you may not be able to fully understand or communicate the benefits of a such an offering in a meaningful way.   Sure, people are used to “hype” – or noise, but what we really want is “signals” or insights.

Had enough of this post – going to bed now.