Is there a connection?

I recently noticed a story on the BBC commenting on a decline in users on the social networking site Facebook .   Nothing unusual in that:  journalists are always on the lookout for new trends or the beginning of the end of a trend. I guess the question is whether this news is the marker of something ‘terminal’ or whether in this accelerated cyber world, it’s part of the normal ‘dip’ that is encountered in any product life-cycle. Tweak the product a little and hopefully normal service will be resumed.

But in today’s Western Mail, I noticed the following article which comments on how the corporate world is beginning to make use of Facebook. The article is entitled ‘How to win friends in cyber world’. The article makes the point that forward-thinking companies are beginning to embrace social networking sites as a new means of communicating with their customers. More ominously, and not so good for Facebook, the article goes on to observe:
‘Better yet, employers are within their rights to access information in the public domain. This has great potential in recruitment and, used wisely, in monitoring existing employees.’ Sounds harmless enough, but there are shades of 1984 here. Ultimately, such corporate activity could result in mass ‘cyber-desertion’ and scupper Facebook completely.

 

Apple logo

An interesting article on Apple and branding in Wired magazine. In many respects the later versions of the Apple logo with the bite taken out provides a pun on bite/byte – whether consciously or sub-consciously. The story linking ‘the bite’ to Alan Turing sounds somewhat apocryphal, but now it’s out in the linguistic ether, it will be nonetheless real.

Whenever I reference the apple logo during teaching, I link its significance to the story of Adam and Eve. In what might be seen as an act of resistance, Eve bites from the apple of the tree of knowledge and becomes ‘knowing’. If you think of computers as a way of extending knowledge then it makes a degree of sense. It also fits in with Apple’s counter-cultural aspirations as demonstrated in their renowned ’1984′ advertisement. And whether the ‘originators’ of the Apple logo intended these connotations of meaning isn’t really an issue. The story of Eve and the apple is so iconic, so deeply embedded in Western culture that it will operate at both conscious and subconscious levels.