Beyond Podcasting & Reading Lists: Strange Days ahead

The Wachowski brothers didn't invent the idea of 'jacking-in' to a virtual reality. Neither did James Cameron or his ex-wife Kathryn Bigelow, but four years before The Matrix introduced a similar concept to a wider audience their 1995 movie Strange Days took a disturbing look at the notion of directly tapping into the sensory recordings of other human beings. Minority Report, Terminator 2 and The Matrix are the only other sci-fi films which have kept me sitting in my cinema seat quietly mulling over what I'd just witnessed while the credits rolled.

In Strange Days Superconductor Quantum Interference Devices (SQUIDs) were illegally used to make recordings of other people's experiences "direct from the cerebral cortex". These 'clips' were then sold on the black market and enabled the buyer to feel all the sensations that came with the experience. As such they were as addictive as any drug and even the hero Lenny (played by Ralph Fiennes) was himself hooked on "jacking in," constantly replaying clips of happier times with ex-girlfriend Faith.

Apple won't be introducing the iSQUID any time soon but its not hard to see where the future of audio and video Podcasting could be headed. The future needn't be as dark or disturbing as Strange Days of course and the uses of such sensory subscriptions will only be limited by our imagination.

That's why I consider Dave Winer's term for subscribable OPML files - Reading Lists - much too limiting. Audio and video podcasts, and photostreams could just as easily constitute the pre-packaged feed list, so a term which implies human readable, text based media is simply too narrow. Dynamic, nebulous RSS 'feed bundles' can be so much more than a way for newsrooms to offer dynamic attention streams to their audience.

Afterall, we're not just reading; we're watching, listening, experiencing. We're jacking in. A Reading List is nothing less than a handcrafted, regularly updated bundle of feeds. We could call them Beeds. I favour this term because it captures the idea of shiny little attention nuggets, easily packaged, shared and even traded. Just as our ancestors traded in beads and Lenny in Strange Days traded in clips I could see markets emerging for the trade in Beeds.

Let's take the scenario where I've got an upcoming business trip to RSSity. Now, I've never been to RSSity before and I've no idea what the weather is like, what sights I should see, what entertainment is available or what restaurants to eat in. What I need is for someone, preferably a resident of RSSity to build me a Beed to which I can temporarily subscribe (or jack-in). BlogBridge refers to Reading List managers as Guides and that choice of terminology seems quiet prescient to me.

My RSSity Guide could build a beed which includes the RSSWeather feed for RSSity, video and audio podcast feeds for local Radio and TV stations, reviews of local restaurants published according to Structured Blogging formats, and so on and so forth. Through a next-generation OPML browsing, RSS aggregating, podcasting client I could 'conduct' the various sensory streams a la detective John Anderton in Minority Report, into a coherent multimedia symphony.

Comments

[Damien Mulley]

Dude, have you ever read Neuromancer by William Gibson? Coined the term cyberspace. Talked about this computer generated world called "The Matrix" too. Wonder who ripped him off? All in a book published in 1984. Some of his ideas are great and inspiring too.

[James Corbett]

Nope, never read it Damien, but I've heard so much about it I probably should. I'm not much of a book reader to be honest and much prefer my sci-fi on the big screen.

I guess it doesn't matter who ripped who off though because its a bit like the blogosphere isn't it - memes go 'round and 'round getting ripped, mixed and mashed to a degree where its difficult to know who came up with the original thought. But all the while being refined and evolving...

[Kosso]

Great post. Love it. Strange Days was a great idea - but a bad flick ;) Neuromancer is definitely a book you should read. They use the term jacking in. There is a point in the story where the hero is 'jacked in' and need to see somewhere in the real world - so he taps into the artificial eyes of his cybernetically enhanced female partner. ;) nice.

Also, the same 'record and playback' of experience is in a great movie called BrainStorm, with Christopher Walken.

I like the way you're thinking here. ;)

K