We're now located at UnwindMedia.com/FutureChat, so move your bookmarks, because this website is going to disappear completely very soon!

Monday, June 30, 2014

Reaching into the Future

I'm holding myself to keeping this short, but this is an issue which has come up multiple times for me in the last few months, has been covered by media establishments, and tested by people like Derek at +Veritasium.


The issue, which affects most of us, but especially those of us who like to make things on the Internet, is that getting through the noise on the Internet is very difficult. Especially on sites like Facebook, where there is lots of advertising money at play, it is very important that only the "best" content gets through our "social filters" and makes it to our eyeballs. For people who manage Facebook pages, this means that we are vying for an increasingly smaller slice of time-pie. As networks like Facebook reach total permeation in a society, we are bombarded with important stuff from friends, family, advertisers and others all the time.

Facebook has allowed brands to purchase additional promotion for their posts for some time now (at least a year or two) and in the last year has also decidedly limited the number of people who see unpromoted posts. I hope you can see how the simultaneous ideas are in conflict here:

Facebook only wants to show you posts you're likely to comment on or like (ideally there would only be 3-4 of these at the top of the news feed, given the size of our friendship networks) so you're basically guaranteed that you're not going to see content from everybody, especially with default settings where nobody is given any preference over anybody else.

However, sometimes, Facebook brands are BAD at advertising, which means that posts which companies pay to have people see will not reach very many people organically, and will not be liked very much. In those situations, the choice Facebook has made is to send those posts to only people who like content from all kinds of pages blindly (either spambots, or clickfarms).

For the average person trying to be seen on Facebook, this means that they end up paying money to outsource likes overseas, where people are paid to click like or follow Twitter accounts, but don't actually engage at all with the content. Obviously, this looks the same on the surface, as your pages are being viewed, but interaction goes WAY down on those posts compared to those which are organically popular.



It is exactly this reason that I don't want to pay for promotion of my content, because I know that it is cheap and will not result in anything positive except people who aren't real liking my content. However, I also want real people to see what I am working on, even though I do have a very limited budget and time, we obviously all want the best for the stuff we make/do.

Really, the only way to get stuff seen on social networks is the same way it has always been, getting people you know to help you by sharing what they see, and by sharing it yourself, either from the page or manually. This is unfortunate, but nobody said making stuff was easy, and making stuff people actually want to see is WAY harder.

I'd love to hear from you guys about this issue, if you think there's something I could improve about +Future Chat or my other projects, feel free to drop me a line in the comments, or on Facebook, Twitter (@futurechats) or by email at futurechats@gmail.com or to my personal email at me@robattrell.com. I look forward to hearing from you!

Thursday, June 26, 2014

Future Tech Chat #17: Sunday News Edition



This week on Future Tech Chat, we will be slowing down a little bit, taking some time to relax. This week has featured a TON of news from Google Inc. (as we discussed in the I/O predictions episode), so we will definitely reflect on what we saw from I/O, and how our predictions fared.

We'll also be taking a look at some of the biggest news stories of the year from Microsoft, Apple and others, and how they might affect the tech world over the next 6 months. May/June is technology conference season, so there have been quite a few different announcements about new products and features. This week is also a great opportunity to answer a few questions from viewers and talk a little bit about our technology backgrounds. It's going to be a great episode!

News stories




I hope you'll tune in live at 12:30 PM EDT on Sunday, June 29th for the episode, and you'll be able to watch it in full above live or after it's aired.

You can direct any questions you might have to the Q&A on the event page (https://plus.google.com/events/c03kvc0burjbci0jitev73ug5fs), or on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. We look forward to seeing you here live!

Friday, June 20, 2014

FTC Special Edition #16: Google I/O 2014

Tune in live for a special 30-minute episode

Ahhhh it's that time of year again! The flowers are blooming, the sun is shining, the birds are singing, and Google is holding its annual I/O conference! The conference runs next week starting on June 25th, and we'll all have our eyes glued to the tech news sites to see what is announced.

This week's Future Tech Chat mini-episode will feature +Rob Attrell and myself, along with special guests +Carolyn Higman and +Ross May!

These types of corporate events are greatly anticipated forums for product releases and company developments, and it is a time-honoured tradition to make predictions and wish lists of what we'd like to see come out of them. In this week's special edition mini-episode, we will be sharing these predictions and thoughts with each other and all of you!

Apple recently held its WWDC event and made big splashes with the iOS 8 developments and features they announced, along with the health-conscious app and functionality integration they will begin focusing on. We still haven't seen much in the way of Apple-branded wearables, so the time is ripe for Google to be first-to-market with a Google watch and possibly expanding the Google Glass Explorer program to a geographically broader customer base.

Links to stuff we talked about:



The ball is in Google's court, let's keep our fingers crossed for a slam dunk!


I hope you'll tune in live at our special mid-week time slot of 9:00 PM EDT on Thursday, June 19th for the episode, and you'll be able to watch it in full below live or after it's aired.

As usual, you can ask us any questions you might have on the Q&A in the event page (https://plus.google.com/events/ckl1neak16gksfkmkgudn1ne6g8) on FacebookTwitter and Google+, or by email at futurechats@gmail.com. So far we have answered or addressed every question submitted, and you can expect that trend to continue!

We look forward to seeing you there live on Thursday!

Thursday, June 19, 2014

Future Sci Chat #2: Alternative Energy



You might have seen or heard about Future Tech Chat, but have maybe found it to be a little inaccessible. I really hope you'll enjoy some of the science topics we plan to discuss on this new show (GMOs, robotics, pharmaceuticals, etc.), we have a lot of great stuff planned to discuss in the coming months.

In this episode, we will be getting into the nitty gritty details of alternative energy (basically anything that isn't "classical" non-renewable energy, like coal, oil and natural gas. There are a baffling number of problems with these resources' use in our world, and the alternatives are getting cheaper and more beneficial with each passing year. I really hope you enjoy our conversation!

We always love when we get questions from interested parties, and there is a Q&A section on Google+ where the chats are hosted, as well as in the comment section on YouTube.

Some links to check out:

https://plus.google.com/+AlexP/posts/9gNzhzcVMpZ
http://media.cns-snc.ca/ontarioelectricity/ontarioelectricity.html




I hope you'll tune in live at 5:00 PM EDT on Saturday, June 21st for the episode, and you'll be able to watch it in full above live or after it's aired.

You can direct any questions you might have to the Q&A on the event page (https://plus.google.com/events/c8ab48ipg1bshgkfs3v5ujdk1is), or on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. We look forward to seeing you here live!

Thursday, June 12, 2014

Future Tech Chat #15: Parenting (Father's Day Special)


Starts live at 12:30 PM EDT on Saturday June 14th, 2014!

In this special Father's Day episode of Future Tech Chat, we will be talking about the technology that goes in to all aspects of modern parenting. From watching TV with toddlers, to giving teens tablets, we will discuss all varieties of electronics that can be involved in the child rearing process.

This is a topic that should be relevant to most people in their 20s, as technology has become an integral part of all of our lives. I, for one, am very interested to find out what raising a child will be like given the huge increase in technology that is available while raising a child, and how parents are now expected to be tracking their child and knowing their whereabouts 24/7, when my childhood was such a free experience and all the generations up to mine were all fine with the more "laissez-faire" parenting.

Should be a good one!




I hope you'll tune in live at 12:30 PM EDT on Saturday, June 14th for the episode, and you'll be able to watch it in full above live or after it's aired.

You can direct any questions you might have to the Q&A on the event page (https://plus.google.com/events/csgv3crtinj971cahd48rsuknn4), or on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. We look forward to seeing you here live!

Thursday, June 5, 2014

Future Sci Chat #1: Electric Cars


Starts live at 12:30 PM EDT on Saturday June 7th, 2014!

Welcome everyone to Future Sci Chat. This weekend we will be having the first episode of this new series, covering electric cars. We will talk about reservations people have about going electric, difficulties companies have faced for a century trying to sell this idea, and the current limitations of the technology. All in all, it should be a very fun episode!

Some of you might have seen or heard about Future Tech Chat, but have maybe found it to be a little inaccessible. I really hope you'll enjoy some of the science topics we plan to discuss on this new show (alternative energy, GMOs, robotics, etc.), we have a lot of great stuff planned to discuss in the coming months.

This show will have the same format as Future Tech Chat, that being a 45-60 minute live show taped (usually) on Saturdays, but that can be watched at any time thereafter. We always love when we get questions from interested parties, and there is a Q&A section on Google+ where the chats are hosted, as well as in the comment section on YouTube.

Links:
teslamotors.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqSDWoAhvLU - Self-driving Car
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/electric-car-with-massive-range-in-demo-by-phinergy-alcoa-1.2664653 - Electric Car with Greatly Improved Range.





I hope you'll tune in live at 12:30 PM EDT on Saturday, June 7th for the episode, and you'll be able to watch it in full below live or after it's aired.

You can direct any questions you might have to the Q&A on the event page (https://plus.google.com/u/0/events/cgm4ttq6b8c025plru7cru6naig), or on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. We look forward to seeing you here live!