1897 Snap 'n Two

There's an old adage---well, as old as the internet: "If it's free, you aren't the customer, you're the product." I thought of that when I was doing my previous commentary on the hot new app known as Snapchat.
Snapchat offers a "free" service whereby you can send automatically self-destructing pictures of your life or person to friends. Naturally, this has been a boon to the sexting crowd, as now those drunken pictures of lascivious flirtation are only as lasting as a 10-second countdown.
A peepshow app.
No word whether the paid version comes with a set of Mardi Gras beads.
But you gotta ask: What does Snapchat the company get out of all this? Where do they intend to monetize your ill-considered buff-oonery?
Will they, like Facebook-infected Instagram, change their privacy policy suddenly and say that though they don't "own" your posted content, they can still use it and sell it however they wish?
Is the software that dissolves your picture reversible?
And don't be too sure your photos are dissolving. The illustrating picture in the article I read about Snapchat was a frozen screenshot. I'm sure there's already an anti-Snapchat dissolver app out there right now that personal paparazzi types have downloaded to their smartypants phones.
Lastly, who's to say Snapchat itself isn't actually storing all the photos somewhere? For future sale to the highest bidder. As every celebrity knows, take no nude pictures anywhere. They will end up online and in the tabloids.
So if you're thinking of being famous, or don't want to involuntarily be so, don't take the picture at all.
Before you drink and post, that's a snap judgment you should make. Or when it returns to haunt you, it'll give new meaning to the term "snappy comeback."
America, ya gotta love it.

1896 Snapping It Up

I read about an interesting bit of new technology the other day. And it's fading fast. Not the technology. It's getting more popular than ever everyday. No, the technology is about fading fast. As in pictures.
If you're roughly in my age group, you may remember a haunting popular song called “Traces of Love” that mentions faded photographs. That's because the old color print processing in film wasn't permanent. Exposure to UV rays and such like would cause the tint to fade and disappear.
That's why digital was such a hit. The pictures were as permanent as the device you stored them on. And if you were careful to save them in each new upgraded digital iteration you could open and view them forever.
Or if you posted them online. Or a friend took one of the pictures you innocently sent to him or her and posted it on his or her Facebook, low and behold, your drunken funny face was as eternal and ubiquitous as the internet.
Oops. Imagine the stupid things you did as a teenager. Now imagine them digitally immortalized.
Enter the new technology. It's called Snapchat. Snapchat, in a nutshell, allows you to take and send pictures to friends and foes and after a certain space of time, they will self destruct.
That space of time can be only seconds if you like. Allowing you to share a teasing photo, or a brief snapshot of the club you're hanging out in.
Naturally, it's also being adopted by the sexting crowd, who enjoy a little bit of flirtatious display but don't want their ifs ands and buts portrayed permanently.
Great idea. But like all new photo equipment I wonder about accessories.
Does it come with a flash attachment?
America, ya gotta love it.

1895 Techno Irony

I love the march of technology. And all the ironies it brings. Like recently I was listening to an ad on the radio. Radio ads are supposedly a dying enterprise. Slated to be replaced by social media offerings right and left. One of which is an outfit called Constant Contact. Which for some reason always reminds of tea.
In their radio ad, Constant Contact promised to deliver an email service, complete with internal analytics, directly to your direct customers. "Internal analytics" means that, with every email they send that gets opened, they'll deliver spy stuff back to you. (And who knows what they'll keep for themselves.) They promise a fantastic advertising response. Which they ought to, since your emails are only going out to your pre-defined list.
But that brings up the basic advertising question: How do you get new customers? Constant Contact has figured that out too. That's why they're advertising on the radio.
To get some new ones of their own...
On to building that social network. Numerous of my friends and acquaintances, weary of asking me to join Facebook---cause, you know, I refuse to turn over all my personal information to Mark Zuckerburg for him to do with however he wishes---have asked me to join LinkedIn instead.
So I noticed something the other day. LinkedIn, modern as it is, is still stymied by the ancient limitations of our language. Their invitation says, "This is a reminder that on December 3rd John Smith sent you an invitation to be part of their professional network on linked in.
That damn impersonal personal possessive pronoun.
Making all my individual friends plurals.
I guess it's a lot quicker to build a network if all your individuals are multiple personalities.
Tougher to stay in constant contact with them though.
America, ya gotta love it.