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Image showing prevalence of self-esteem issues induced by Instagram

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TED Talk on the harassment faced by women in online gaming environments. Female gamers use identity play as a means to avoid harassment.

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Excuse me princess - gender in video game culture: Stirling Little at TEDxUNC

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Paper discussing the transformation and globalization of surveillance in the internet age.

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Prezi slides about the sociology of virtual worlds, examples include non-game MMO's and game MMO's such as EVE Online.

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Beyond the Magic Circle - Sociology on Virtual Worlds

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Paper discussing the social dynamics of virtual worlds such as in 'Ultima Online'.

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Game Studies - Living a Virtual Life: Social Dynamics of Online Gaming

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The first scholarly journal on computer games

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Paper exploring the sociality of gaming. Documenting the history of digital gaming as it rose from a subcultural activity into the mainstream, the author aims to understand digital gaming as a social leisure activity.

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The Sociality of Gaming: A mixed methods approach to understanding digital gaming as a social leisure activity

2012 (English) Doctoral thesis, comprehensive summary (Other academic)

Abstract [en]

This dissertation is an exploration of the practice of social digital gaming, using a mixed methods approach with complementary data and analytical methods. The main themes are the prevalence and meaning of gamers' experiences of social gaming and the underlying structures limiting or assisting social gaming, both material and social. Applying an everyday perspective, focus is on gamers' day-to-day practices and experiences. Studies I and II enquire into relational aspects of social gaming based on interviews and survey data. Study III investigates the relationship between game design and gamer agency and its importance for social interaction with strangers, using in-game participant observation. Lastly in Study IV, building on interviews, female gamers come to the fore as their gender construction in an online game is examined with the aim of understanding the connection between online and offline.

The main result concerns how social gaming takes place in various social relations. How gaming comes to be―what it means―is dependent on the relations between gamers, be they family members, real life friends, Internet friends or strangers. In these interactions, gender and sexual identity are realized; in the relations between gamers, physical proximate or online. Finally, virtuality is shown to be a social accomplishment of the people engaging in games rather than a property of the games themselves.

Focus on the relational unveils how gaming comes to be in the process of interaction, a process at the same time dependent on underlying structures, i.e. games as designed platforms with certain affordances for social behaviour. We are able, thus, to reconcile the social constructivist position that (social) gaming is created in the relations between gamers engaging in games with the more formalist approach that games are rule based structures. Games create a foundation for interaction that can further develop into the creation/maintenance of relationships and identity.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages

Stockholm: Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis, 2012. , p. 71

Series
Stockholm studies in sociology, ISSN 0491-0885 ; N.S., 56
Keyword [en]

Digital games, video games, computer games, online gaming, gender, sociality, social relationships, social interaction, everyday life, MMO, World of Warcraft National Category Sociology Research subject Sociology

Identifiers

URN: DiVA: urn:nbn:se:su:diva-83163 ISBN: 978-91-87235-11-5 (print) ISBN: 978-91-87235-12-2 (print) OAI: oai:DiVA.org:su-83163 diva2:574218

Public defence

2013-01-11, Nordenskiöldsalen, Geovetenskapens hus, Svante Arrhenius väg 12, Stockholm, 10:00 (English)

Opponent

Supervisors

Note

At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 1: Manuscript. Paper 2: Manuscript. Paper 3: Manuscript.

2012-12-202012-12-042016-05-27 Bibliographically approved

List of papers

4. Doing Gender in Cyberspace: -the performance of gender by female World of Warcraft players

Open this publication in new window or tab >> 2011 (English) In: Convergence. The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, ISSN 1354-8565, E-ISSN 1748-7382, Vol. 17, no 3, p. 323-342 Article in journal (Refereed) Published

Abstract [en]

Keyword
gender identity, MMORPG, performative sexuality, social context, World of Warcraft
National Category
Social Sciences
This explorative study focuses on the performance of gender and sexuality in World of Warcraft (WoW), an online game, following Butler's performance theory. Through interviews with female WoW players, gender and sexuality is analysed. The article argues that we cannot study gender online without also looking at sexuality. Gender performances are discussed within the framework of four themes: the avatar; strategies; sexuality, and the contextual importance of WoW. Results show that gender identity construction in WoW is an ongoing process highly dependent on the social context of play. The women interviewed created gendered and sexualized identities constrained and empowered by the rules of the game and the opportunities it offers as well as of their social relations. Although a heterosexual norm rules, there are possibilities hitherto unrecognized for queer performance within the gendered role play in WoW and the game offers the possibility of multiple and alternative performances of the self.
Research subject Sociology
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:su:diva-65337 (URN) 10.1177/1354856511406472 (DOI)
Projects
MMORPG - samhällsproblem eller framtidsliv? 2011-12-072011-12-072017-12-08 Bibliographically approved

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# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Sociality of Gaming: A mixed methods approach to understanding digital gaming as a social leisure activity

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Sociality of Gaming: A mixed methods approach to understanding digital gaming as a social leisure activity 2012 (English) Doctoral thesis, comprehensive summary (Other academic) Abstract [en] This dissertation is an exploration of the practice of social digital gaming, using a mixed methods approach with complementary data and analytical methods.

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Autotune used to be a crutch for incompetent singers but has now become an artistic flourish. Demonstrated here by Kanye West's 'Hold My Liquor'.

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Song created using the SimpleText MacIntosh computer application to create a disconnect between the body and the voice.

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Virtual Currency and How It Is Changing Society

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Virtual Currency and How It Is Changing Society

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The effect of blockchain's broadening relevancy

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[0:01:22] Mike: Vince, welcome to the show, it's good to have you.
Vince: Thank you, yeah, nice to meet you and nice to be in Plovdiv I'm very excited to be here and see all the energy surrounding start-ups that are setting up here. So... Very happy to be here
Mike: I think you are the third person we ever interviewed face to face, so this is kind of cool for us too.
Vince: Oh I hope it doesn't disappoint. So, umm. Yeah haha okay.
[0:01:46] Mike: So we've had a lot of interesting conversations in the last couple of days, you've arrive yesterday and we had a blockchain meet-up, we did some presentations and stuff, I spoke you spoke Aric Dromi, our last interviewee also spoke, and we talked about a lot of interesting things.
So what was most interesting to you?
Vince: I think blockchain as a whole is one of the first technologies that's gonna connect us really instead of keeping us separate. As a follow-up to the internet where basically we had the infrastructure to connect, now we need to have the reason to connect. We need to have the logic, we need to have the mapping of how we're all related and how we're all valuable to each other and I think for the first time, as humanity, we can start really acting like this collective intelligence and start doing super cool things.
[0:02:33] Mike: What was the conversation, today, that we were having, where you were talking about your hesitations about the blockchain and you said something about it being the logic thing.
So what was your hesitation about the blockchain, Euvie?
Euvie: Oh, not so much hesitation, but my point was that there are always a percentage of the humans who will wanna colonize and invade things and kind of stick their own agenda into every technology.
So, how the printing press people thought that it was gonna liberate everyone, you know, push us into enlightenment age, and to a degree it did, and then the same happened with the radio and the same happened with the internet. People had super high hopes, and now people have really high hopes for the blockchain and so I wonder if in a few years if it becomes mainstream if it will get corrupted.
[0:03:18] Vince: I think the main thing to grasp about the blockchain is that all of the previous technologies like the printing press and the radio and internet are basically replacements of the previous infrastructure to communicate on a large scale all around the world. And if you compare it to the body it's mostly the infrastructure that gets updated every couple of decades. So, it's like the blood vessels and the nervous system. But the brain and the logic is always something that we as humanity kept private within organizations or within individuals. And it's not something that we really shared as humanity, and I think now with blockchain, if you compare it to the human body, is the first time that we get like a collective brain, a collective logic and a collective memory of everything that happened. To reason with that logic for the future.
[0:04:05] So I think it's really a new technology for the first time. And I think something super cool is if you look at it and you zoom out you see that as humanity we are comparable to cells in our bodies forming us as a human. I think us as humans in our turn together form this giant organism called humanity. And If we have a collective brain and a collective logic we can start putting that to use we can do even greater things than we're doing right now.
[0:04:35] Euvie: It's like the blockchain could become conscious.
Vince: Definitely. I think in the end it's just a mapping of all the small decisions that you can check with the history and with the sensors that are all around us or whatever, that's gonna create this never-ending logic of improvement. And the cool thing about the blockchain is that every one of us with just a couple lines of code can put out there to benefit all of us.
And it will be out there, and it will be maintained and it cannot be taken down because it's out there. It's a one-way street, you can only add things to the blockchain.
I think in the future if we start seeing the power of all of us just sending something out there and it can impact us even after our lives. Yeah, it's gonna do a lot of good in the world.
[0:05:22] Mike: What do you think are some of the more obvious and basic applications for blockchain coming up?
Vince: I think one of the important things ??? consumer behavior with the stuff that we buy. I think we live in a very consumer based society where we buy products instead of the story behind products. We buy our clothes from chains where people work who are not original founders so you get like distance from the things that you buy. I think with the blockchain when you can see the whole history of how the product came to be you can go back literally to the root of everything you buy. If you drink coffee you can start tracing the farmer that actually farmed those coffee beans, the person who grinded it. And so, you can see the whole story of everything that you buy and the other way around is also that the people selling you can see your story.
So, it will be a world where we can start seeing the impact of everything that we do and we can also feel responsible for everything that we do because we can see the relations between everything. So I think the supply chain transparency and behavior transparency those are like the big things.
[0:06:29] I think it's also allow, tvs are getting smart, cars are getting smart and so on, I think the interesting aspect of the blockchain Is that we can put wallets into anything around us. Not just humans not just businesses but also that car which can start doing transactions, it can start paying the road it drives on, it can pay the car in front of it to go to the side. It can start paying its own parking ticket and so on.

A lot of things will start being real transactions that are recorded that are now just separate things happening. And I think that's something really cool that's gonna happen.
[0:07:06] Mike: There seems to be sort of a, like, to imagine that sort of scenario you need to go through some sort of mental shift. What do you think that mental shift is? That common person might be able to go "okay that's normal a car paying to.."
Vince: I think now that just administration of all these transactions takes work, like a human needs to enter all these things. It's something that you think it's no point in recording all these things. But because with blockchain wastefulness of recording transactions is so easy, you can start registering a lot of things and this can be sensor this can be door lock, this can be light shining on someone that's under the lightbulb that detects that that person is sitting under the lightbulb, and this person can start paying for this lightbulb instead of person who owns the room.
Because we can start tracking all the usage of all the small things that we think is just too small to track, we're gonna track and we're gonna make it more honest. It's just like now I'm visiting you guys here in Bulgaria but I pay taxes in Netherlands even though im just two days in Bulgaria. But if it gets all connected, I can pay taxes very easily just for these two days in Bulgaria because I use your infrastructure, your utilities and so on.
[0:08:18] Euvie: It's interesting we were having a conversation with a friend actually, yesterday, it think it was about solar panels. In Mike's presentation there is a bit how with blockchain if somebody has solar panels on their roof they can sell excess energy directly to their neighbors or to their city without going through the municipality or through a big power company. And our friend was like, oh, but I don't wanna deal with making deals with 5 neighbors it just sounds like more work but actually what people don't realize is that you can preset contracts that are gonna be automated and you don't even have to think about it and you cut out actually a lot of bureaucracy actually by doing that.
Mike: By cutting out the middle man which is we typically think of as the middle man we're actually adding more work and more decision making to be individual. But no, it's an automated system, there just not one person benefiting in a monopolistic setting.
So I think that was interesting that even he who is more familiar with the blockchain was still like "ah, there are good things with middle man as well".
[0:09:15] But I think that the bureaucracy aspect is not like you need to go to your solar panel and monitor and track some number put it on a marketplace or whatever. It's with the blockchain that your solar panel itself will do the transaction and will find the person buying it. The whole hassle will be gone to start sharing all our overcapacity of everything that we have around us. Think it's going to be a big change of ownership. I think we need to drop ownership in a way because we also had the discussion about for example the phone bills where you have your extra minutes and your extra data that then in the future you're gonna share with all the people so that they can use all your remaining space. This is gonna happen with most of the resource that we have.
[0:10:01] Now we all overproduce we overconsume we all have duplicates of a lot of things we're not using at a certain moment and its time to divide it more even. Take the example of a car again if you've parked it and you're not using it, the car can be used by someone else and then it generates money instead of costing money.
I think we have to look at a lot of things that are happening in the society with this model and turn it around and start utilizing it.
Euvie: That's one of the ideas actually that we have far the incubator where we're gonna have. I mean we'll have to buy the equipment lie the VR setups and different things then people can come in and use and hopefully incorporate the blockchain so that it tracks usage and people can just pay micro transactions for the short time they're using it instead of having to go out and buy their own VR goggles which are quite expensive.
[0:10:53] I think in the future because it becomes so easy to track who is using something at the moment we need to start seeing things literally in the minutes or hours that they're used and now we divide the house ownership into rent where you break it into units of a month. And then we have hotels where they break it into days and we have meeting rooms that you can rent by the hour. But I think you can apply this for any space that you have or any tool or any asset that you have.
If we have the tools to administer to register even just a couple of seconds of usage then even a washing machine can have a thousand owners at the same time if they all do it sequentially. And this becomes easy thanks to the blockchain technology.
[0:11:32] Mike: I've even thought of like speaking to all of our neighbors in the building about collectively getting a room sweeper so no one has to sweep the floors anymore.
Vince: Exactly, what's the point of all having the same stuff it's a crazy realization and it comes forth out of this industrial mindset of producing products constantly and pushing everyone to buy the same things. Like a lot of people have the ladder at their home and they only use it once a year to climb onto something and its pointless to have the ladder. And with the washing machine I think its similar. You have so many items in your building that you can share easily, you just need a simple tool to take the hassle out of sharing it and see the responsibility of the people that use it and so on.
[0:12:16] Mike: If I am not familiar with this sort of thing, how do you connect the objects that you're not using to the blockchain?
Vince: I think that we need to start bringing everything online like the internet of things taught so the room wash would also have a unique identifier on the blockchain that I can do a transaction to, to buy the right for next time and then It gets tracked for example where the thing is, so that when the next person wants to use it he should be able to see instantly that it's at the neighbors place two doors up. It should be able to see that okay if somethings broken, that the last person did that.
But everything should have this unique identifier and be registered and start interacting with the blockchain.
[0:12:55] Euvie: I think a lot for people would think, well what are the privacy issues with this kind of system where everything knows everything about everyone.
Vince: Yeah I think the cool thing about the blockchain technology is that you can have so many different addresses to do transactions with that you can create a new address every time. And an address is basically like a wallet within a wallet. And so for every wallet I can decide to announce to the world that this is me, or I can say im gonna remain anonymous with this. So maybe you will just have a wallet for the roomer that cleans the rooms and you will keep it separate from the transaction that you do for your food or the transaction that you do for your business, so people don't necessarily have to see all the relations between all these things. You can easily separate it and keep it anonymous.
[0:13:42] Euvie: You talked about reputation systems on the blockchain. So based on your reputation maybe the price of somethings changes or your status in the neighborhood changes based on how much you contributed to that neighborhood.
Vince: Yeah I think now the supply side always determines the price, a cup of coffee is always a cup of coffee and it's the same for you and for me and so on. You see a lot of business start to build these loyalty programs where you can get an extra cup of coffee if you bought ten but I think that's just the beginning, it can be done way smarter. Again an example with the car where the car will track how you drive, if you drive pollutive or you drive eco-friendly and if you then go to the gas station the price can be different if you use the energy thoughtfully or if you waste energy it can be higher price. It's going to be the same in the super market where you can scan the products and see if they are sources from local farmers and if then as a person you always buy from local farmers and thereby support local economy things might become cheaper than actually buying them from like... Like in the Netherlands a lot of people eat avocados and they always fly in from Chile and the other side of the world.
[0:14:55] And i always think its ridicules that for less than one euro this thing can board a plane, fly to the other side of the globe and be on my plate. I think that it's an insane thing that we find this normal, and actually that apple that I buy from the farmer down the road might be more expensive than this avocado from the Chile.
Euvie: This actually really relates to the thing we were talking about with implementing basic income and how one of the ways we can do it is implementing the carbon tax. And the carbon tax would be charged every time you do something that you know pollutes the planet.
[0:15:28] It could be that a piece of fruit that gets plucked from the field it has a certain base price and the price become variable based on a lot of factors. One factor could be for example that it becomes stale and less fresh and then the price decreases over time. But you can also put a geo location as to where it was plucked and then the more it gets removed from the place it was plucked, the price increases. So then you can start incentivizing to consume things and grow them locally for example. I think that's in the future a way to trigger people to be more aware of consuming local things that don't impact the environment that much. Or that you see that the supermarket if it wants to source products, it can see in the supply chain how many transportation links where in between, like truck and boats and airplanes or whatever and it can calculate, because geo locations were are tracked at all these points, how much pollution was created to get this thing there.
[0:16:29] Yeah, you can start creating logic about that and yeah its going to incentivize a lot of good behavior and more honest local buying from consumers.
Euvie: Yeah I find that concept of creating the right incentives really fascinating because right now in our world the incentives are all wrong. We have a lot of incentives around making money and keeping things secret in business so that nobody can steal your process or whatever but if we can incentivize different things we could really change how we live.
Yeah I think this has to do again with how the money system was built and now if I transact a hundred euros to, you the values is seen as these hundred euros, and you feel powerful that you have this note of a hundred euros. But with the blockchain It also registers that we made that transaction for a certain reason. You get this like, account, like I bought this from you and once you start spending it all the transaction that will be done with these hundred euros will be linked to this.
[0:17:24] So you will be more and more aware of that your hundred euros is not that literally that money shifting but it's also connecting that certain network with certain networks of other transactions in the future and the past. And it builds more value over time than the actual hundred euros. So it become in the future less and less valuable to hold this money because if you hold it there are no connections being made with that money. And you might be poor in the future if you hold on to your money instead of spending it because spending it becomes the smartest thing to do because it connects more reputation to you.
[0:18:00] And you should start incentivizing people to for example spend money only in their area or only in their friend group and that money also has an expiration date like food and you say like okay here you have a hundred euros but you need to spend it in your neighborhood and if you do that within a month it will become a hundred and ten euros or something like that, and if we all do this and start incentivizing local again. I think that's the counter movement we need in the world right now where everything become these huge hubs of global centralization and you see this with cities you see this with food production, you see this with banks, everything is centralizing.
And I think with the blockchain you can create a counter movement where local becomes the most logical thing to do and therefor you have a way more evenly spread out across the world a lot for resources a lot of systems and I think it's a better world.

[0:18:54] Mike: I like how blockchain makes us rethink how we think about value exchange.
Like you know if someone posts something interesting or entertaining or funny or something on facebook and you give it a like, why is there no value exchanged in that. Another thing, just the constant stream of content exchange could be like here's ta micro transaction of a token.
Vince: Yeah and also in the music industry if you buy music we also have this industrial mindset of creating a product out of music. We created CD which was a plastic box with a plastic disc in it and actually when I buy the music I'm buying this plastic box with a plastic disc In it and I'm not buying the artist.
[0:19:37] And with blockchain because you start tracking who bought it, it will become more and more feeling like "hey I'm investing in this musician to make more music in the future and I'm consistent in supporting this artist." Like with the CDs, nobody tracked who the fans were. So with blockchain I as a musician can see that you guys always buy my music as one of the first people, I can see you're my true fans because you're always first in line to buy something. So next time I have a concert and say a ticket is a hundred euros, for my first fans who always buy this and this and this, I can list the qualifications, its free to come, because you're my supporters, you believe in me.
[0:20:15] For people who don't support and believe me can pay money. And I think you get gradually the shift towards that and you already see this with hotels now for example where they ask us now to implement our social media following to get a discount on our booking for example. The reputation will become more and more valuable and the more relevant your reputation is to the other party I think money will gradually move to the background and be less needed. It's the ultimate form of barter maybe in the end. Money was just this in between mechanism because the value didn't match up.
But with the blockchain you can always find the value in this giant network of nodes of relations that were mapped or whatever.
[0:20:55] Mike: Yeah I think the most interesting and obvious ones are the finance interacting, that sort of stuff, but I'm really curious in that what you see in other industries interacting with blockchain like virtual reality or artificial intelligence or anything that's really ground breaking on its on, then coming on to the blockchain.
Vince: Yeah we also discussed like the creepy thing for example if artificial intelligence becomes so smart that it can literally see all the chat conversations that you had. And it can really read up on how you communicate and which things you reference and it can also instantly read your books because computers can read books within seconds. It can become so smart that its like a personal assistant that is literally like you for example based on everything you did in the past and it can facilitate you, so that you can focus more and more on the good things that are higher levels of the maslows pyramid and drop all the basic things on the lower levels because it gets automated and predicted and catered to you in a way that it would probably take you a lot of time or some time but it gets prepared for you because your behavior becomes facilitateable based on your past behavior.
[0:22:05] Euvie: Its really interesting actually we touched on this with our previous interviewee Aric that AI will become like a part of us like an external processor processing all our data and then feeding it back to us like "oh ive read all of your conversation with this person and I appropriately responded on your behalf, just so you know." And now you know. And you feel like it was you replying to this person but its actually AI.
Vince: Yeah but it's also a dull task like paying your rent or whatever all these small repetitive things like doing groceries. At some point, it will start monitoring like your basic needs and take care of it so you can focus your time on higher things so to say. Higher in the sensem ore towards art or learning or self-expression and all the basic will be taken care of by the smart software all this automated version of all the minor tasks that you usually do. And it allows for more freedom to focus on things we find beautiful.
[0:23:06] Mike: I love the idea of this like second you that's watching your behavior cause its knows what your goals are. You don't know your own faults or the things you do wrong in conversations and this thing can be watching you all the time and its you it knows how to speak to you, how to critique you, it knows what your goals are and how to help you improve to reach your goals.
Vince: It can also be practical things like just coming here and needing to look for airplane ticket and just by monitoring my own conversation and seeing that I have this intention of visiting you already catered to me and put airplane ticket in place and know that to need to transfer from Sofia to your place. And really putting it on plates so that I can just focus on things and spend my time better that just looking up all this. I really see this as an empowerment of yourself to gain more focus into things that you wanna do.
[0:23:55] That's the beauty of logging all these things, people shouldn't see this as a privacy threat, but more as an empowerment of themselves and all of this is out there and the beauty of the blockchain is that its decentralized and not like the government having all this data on you. Its just you and you embedded software on a blockchain to empower you. You are the owner of it and no bad can be done with it unless you allow it.
Mike: What about things like virtual reality? Or anything like that you see could be an interesting combination?
Vince: Definitely, lot of people can become aware of their own impact in the world. So for example If I can see where I buy my products what kind of impact I have on my surroundings. I think VR can become a great visualization of this whole network where its really difficult to see this impact on the 2d screen and its really difficulty to see it in mapping of statistics and huge excel sheets.
I think virtual reality is probably the most immersive way to visualize everyone and to consume.[0:24:59] As humans we are experience oriented and I don't think we are made to read books and all this dull methods of transporting information I think we're more experience people and feeling it seeing it hearing it all around us is I think the most natural way to interact with all of this and we can to way more things than just on the computer screens or the traditional ways.
Euvie: Its interesting actually it reminds me of the conversation we were having today where Mike was saying there were so many protest during the Vietnam war partially because the photography was so widespread and people actually were getting photos and videos from the world and they realized what kind of impact it was having and the reality of it just hit them and drove the to do something about it. Whereas in the wars before people just didn't have an idea of how devastating it actually was.
[0:24:47] Vince: Yeah I think this is also about connection again, that because you can relate to another country, all of the sudden you start feeling the guilt or the feeling that they're not actually that different. That's why I think its very important to also get this feeling with every product or service that you buy. It might come from this farm from Iraq or it might come from this company in Venezuela and you start seeing like hey I start interreacting with this global economy and invading this country is stupid because my and coffee comes from here and my financial service comes from there and actually we're all connected and not like this is some standalone entity where we just invade and do something bad. No, its literally impacting me because part of my life is connected to that area. And part of the impact that I have impacts that area. Because I'm paying that company something happens there, and I feel attached to that country.
I think also the other interesting thing now is that with blockchains, the mechanism of truth and truth is set in time and It cannot be changed. I think for countries to go to war usually they invade a country and they try to change a lot of things and try to hide how they made the change and put it in their favor or whatever. And I think thanks to the blockchain I think it becomes super difficult to rid out the local companies doing something and putting in companies of the invading country locally.
[0:27:11] Like they do with all of the invasion because you can see transparently that "hey, this is where they messed up and this is where they were responsible for doing this." And people will become more aware of this and take action and not accept that anymore as a logical step. I think if you start feeling the connection that all these people around the world, are actually, like with the six degrees of separation I think is a very good example, the six degrees of separation will happen in any aspect of our life not just the connection with other people but also with the connection with all the places with all the things, all the idea or whatever. Because you will see this huge mapping of how everything is related to one another.[0:27:48] Like Wikipedia is just database but once we start seeing this map and impact of this subject and impact of this. And these people and these groups and so on. Then we really start feeling connected and start acting together. I think this is a good basis to start doing things that are bigger than ourselves.
[0:28:09] Mike: That's a good transition in to next question which is, if you could do whatever you wanted to do, what would you work on?
Vince: Me personally I think the cool thing that blockchain is gonna achieve is that we can do things also distributed. Because it becomes user easy to take this giant piece of work and divide it amongst million piece and now we have the tools to piece all these puzzle pieces together and achieve something. Like in the past you have things like building the pyramids or other great projects that took more than a lifetime to build and that were more complex than a human could comprehend I think we're now moving to this distribution of work so that we can do projects that are too immense for a human to even comprehend or direct. I think most projects that are now happening, a human Is still sitting on top. Like building a skyscraper is still a project of just as couple of year from drawing to building and still a human can supervise it. But with blockchain we can like for example the interplanetary stuff like elon musk will now start with it, maybe it will take 2 million people to achieve full society on mars and it's just a matter of dumping all these tasks on the blockchain in small things that together it will start forming this huge plan of actually making it happen.
[0:29:28] I think this is the future like this decentralized working for greater good projects as a humanity together across nations across groups and yeah just really cooperating instead of competing because we are stuck in this individual mindset.
Euvie: So what do you want to do specifically?
I think for me the problem with blockchain right now is its mostly tech oriented. And were still stuck in this phase that it's like the wall flower in the tech world, everyone notices it but no one doesn't really know what to think of it or whatever. And I think for me it's time to make a shift in making it super practical and I just wanna set out to create a lot of open source prototypes and just share them with the world.
[0:30:14] The example I gave with the car is a good one but another example is the thing with a tree, a tree can have a wallet and our phone can detect based on the geo location that im walking by the tree and my phone can start making small donations to the tree and the tree get a piece of software that can plant a next tree. I really like this idea because we get power to nature again that is bigger than us humans. And it could create and insane momentum of incentivizing good things but It just takes building one temple at the time getting some PR around it, implementing it somewhere and just let it fly. Let the task balloon fly.[0:30:55] So I would like to commit myself to launching a lot of these things and finding a partners for everything. For example, with the tree, the city of Plovdiv gets some attention around it and just start experimenting with it here in the park. Or with the car that like with your previous interview I guess from yesterday, like see if at Volvo we can do this with a couple of cars. And just start gathering a partner for each project. Maybe launch like 50 of these things and some will trigger like the first momentum of the blockchain.
[0:31:24] I think what's important to notice is that we are always pushing technology now but if you ask people what the technology is behind their bank or behind shop where they do something or whatever. Nobody knows these technologies either. So we need to start making shift with very hands on implementations and stop talking about technology. Just start implementing it , I think a lot of people by the time the blockhchain is big they will barely realize that the blockchain is behing it. They will start seeing really cool concepts. And that's how people will start adopting.
[0:31:55]

Mike: Exactly, I think to many people getting involved in the blockchain are taking their engineer perspective and its nobody translating this into human language. We always say "is it designed by an engineer or is it designed by a human? "
Vince: Yeah, exactly
Vince: Yeah and it's also that the second thing with blockchain is we're stuck in this financial mindset with money constantly, we need to also get to the shift of seeing that interactions with things is way more valuable than movement of money and there are so many small things that we take for granted in this world that actually can be accounted for and can be accumulated to indicate something, like just us sitting together our phone can maybe track that we are spending time together. So at some point in my life if I need something like social security or god knows what I can look at like who are the hundred people that spent most time with that are there for me that welcome me and I can instantly then tap instantly that instead of needing to be locked out or something like that.
[0:33:00] I also saw movie or a documentary about addiction, and that addiction is about a feeling of being left out or disconnected. I think a lot of the things I the world have to do with this feeling of being disconnected and its time we start making it transparent how connected you actually are to all the things around you and how much impact you actually have. And if we start seeing this we start feeling a lot better about ourselves and about the things that we do for our surrounding and I think it that's something that needs to happen now like we have a lot of ego centric motivation constantly where people a lot of money or a big house or all these kind of products or status symbols.
[0:33:39] And they don't matter in the end in the end its all about relations and if you ask people before they die what are their last thoughts. And it's always about love and connection and its never about "oh I should have bought this bigger boat or all this bullshit that has to do with consumerism.
Its always about the connections and valuing the connection that you had and impact that you make. I think the blockchain is the first technology that really gets this going for everyone in an equal way.
[0:34:09] And so I think it's a very very important technology. For us to be coming.
Euvie: I also really like what you were talking about with just starting the small things and just putting them out there in a open source way its very grass roots its not like an overarching imposing structure like "oh now the country of Bulgaria has to at once implement the blockchain" It doesn't have to be like that.
Vince: Yeah that's the beauty of like say for example we want to improve our neighborhood. And stop buying from this giant supermarket chains that are global chains and only centralize money, we can start having like this local currency just to buy at local shops and local super markets and then this can just be group of 1500 people so for a big supermarket chain this is no threat, for local government its no thread because it's just a small grassroots initiative.
[0:35:00] But the beauty of it is that we can share this technology open source on the web, and another community hundreds of kilometers away can also start using it in parallel and we don't need money for it. But we just start doing the same things everywhere. And we can adapt it. Every community can update it and create its own version, share it again with the world. And everywhere where the small initiatives start popping up they start chewing away at the established centralized structures like governments or big corporations and so on. Therefor a way of transition will not be a way where its all of the sudden this huge counter movement, no, its so many little things shifting it that you can barely resist it. There is no central thing to fight, there is no central person to attack or take down or chew at their credibility or whatever because you're against it.
[0:35:52] No, its all these local small initiatives that you can barely stop or control. And I think the beauty is that also with centralization you have centralization In a geographical way but you have also centralization that the government takes care of maybe 12 aspects of your life. It can be health the defense, agriculture, economy whatever. They have like all these departments. But maybe with the blockchain technology I start saying like "okay, for an insurance I want to join this group and for my feeling of home or group I belong to I want to join this group. And for my laws in regards to god knows what aspect of life I want to join this group. And slowly parts of the things will be eaten away from the traditional routes and I think that's how its gonna change.
[0:36:36] Its not gonna change with one giant wave, no, its gonna change with very tiny drops everywhere. And the beauty of this new system is just like this mindset of sharing. Like, if it can benefit us just put it out there. Like again the example with a tree I hope if I build it next day 20 people in 20 countries supply it to a tree in their city and they get 20 people taking about it. And there is no game but its just about this rapid distribution of putting it into the world. That's what I really really like about this mindset of the blockchain. Whatever you create it can benefit others. So, put it out there, and if you put it out there you get rewarded again because all these connection start building to what you did.
It's not about money Its about seeing the impact that you contribute to others and that's the beauty.
[0:37:26] Mike: I like how that mindset strips away a lot of the extra steps that would normally be in place if you started a corporation or a startup. Like now you just need a small team of a designer and an idea person an engineer and you can put these things out. What were' talking about with this incubator idea is stripping down all the things that are unnecessary with these bigger corporate entities and just having rapid prototyping and rapid storytelling to get these things out there and get them marketed properly but without this money-making scheme behind all of it, its really cool.
Vince: Yeah I think its also the beauty of creativity in most cases is if you try to force it and we start sitting here and we star drawing on paper like we now need to have a golden idea, it never works out. But if you're under the shower or on the toilet you have the most creative moment because you're doing something totally different and you're just trying it there is no limit on how you need to think in such a moment.
[0:38:21] There is no force on how you need to think, it's just the freedom of letting it roam and start to experiment. I think that's the beauty of an incubator with that freedom is that you can just try it . There shouldn't be a reasoning behind it already when you start gaining something out of it. It should be just about trying it and seeing how far you can get with it.
I think that a lot of initiatives in the world, they are polluted by this constant need for money or a return or a deadline when they will break even. A lot of things are also very valuable only when they are together with other things.
[0:38:56] I can invent something and just put it in this incubator and maybe half a year later another initiative needs actually the solution that was created half a year ago. But half a year I didn't know that we needed it then but it's, you need to have this random synchronicity of things coming together and just trying them for the magic to start happening.
And that's why its really important to experiment and not be too much focus on reasoning all the way through until the exit strategy all this bullshit that startups get indoctrinated with. I think its polluting.
[0:39:27] A lot of startups in the US they get into this cyclic thing of grow big then sell it these founders get indoctrinated with this mindset of valuation and it becomes like this mindset of growth for growth. There is no why behind it of a substantial thing they're adding.
I know it sounds negative buy I mean it in a sense of like if a buy it at a local farmer place I can really feel the passion of his work I can really sense how he does his business how he knows all the plants and all these things and I think for a lot of companies when they try to gain the world. User-base wise or sales-wise, they totally lose this identity of why they did it and its all about growth for growth.
[0:40:07] The whole thing gets lost of why things are done. And I think that's what needs to get back . Just like do it because it feels like a right thing to do and later it will show its value. And I think that's also something that like in the art world that interests me a lot is that you can do things without literally need to have a practical use, or a needing to have like a fixed reason. You just do it because you feel like you need to do it or express it.
It's a totally different mindset, think we're locked in this financial mindset reasoning wise.
[0:40:40] Mike: I like how Luciano explained this, an app developer for the meditation app. He was saying how in the blockchain you can build a piece of the software like a single contract that has a single function that other people test. And then you can just reuse that for other kinds of applications. So, every one thing you develop, you only have to develop it once and you an find examples of this all over the blockchain so you can kind of build your whole app in the chunks. And I really like how that switches the mindset, you're almost like building on top of the shoulders of giants. Every time you start a new thing
[0:41:12] Vince: This is the future in programming. Of course we had open source already but with open source you always had to like really adopt the whole project that someone already built . And I think with the blockchain you really chop it down into very small reusable pieces and you don't have to be a technology guy to even use these lego blocks in the future. It's just like these tiny black boxes with an input and an output that you can read in a human format and basically any problem that you have you can start diving into these lego blocks and look like "is there already a lego block that fits my input/output?" "yes, then I reuse it if not it's a very small task for someone to build it and the next person that needs it can benefit from it."
[0:41:56] And then all of the sudden the knowledge can start growing and then we can start doing really cool things instead of always reinventing everything by ourselves. And wasting so much time and talent on doing the same things all over the globe. I think were' such a repetitive species in that sense. Almost anything that you a lot of people are actually doing the same thing its pointless.
Mike: Yeah I like this kind of plug in automation mentality. Like, "if this then that" that's the same kind of thing, put that on the blockchain and people can reuse these blocks of software, that's really cool. But the other thing you said today about expiring like a corporation or an entity like when the job was done you disband, you've made the thing.
[0:42:32] Vince: Yeah, exactly, that's also something I think is very interesting like most things get started and then they have some success and then they get in this mode because they have certain type of investor or reasoning behind it that they need to continue it. Say for example with the clothing store someone starts out of passion of creating this new kind of sweater, it takes of it becomes a hit. They create a store or whatever.
And then it starts growing it starts hiring people, all the sudden the founder is not anymore, the person selling it and then the company fades away from how it all started and then the investors and the accountants and so on they start reasoning like okay next year we need to grow a bit bigger.
[0:43:11] So we're gonna do the same plus 3%, now how are we gonna sell the same products? Yeah, last year it was a green sweater now we're gonna do red and next year it's gonna be pink or whatever. And you just create this cycle of tiny tweaks or updates to the products instead of really creating or inventing something again.
And I think our whole society is in that way kind of polluted with this never-ending stories of ideas that were once good but that still need to be sold in huge amounts and therefor are pushed in our throats consistently
I think we should focus more on the beauty of temporarity or temporality or how you call it. And the beauty of that something is just that it's short. And the thing that inspired me in Amsterdam was the example I gave there, was that a club opened and it told upfront its closing date within two years.
[0:44:01] And it forces this mentality that it will be gone and it will be something that you need to enjoy now. And it brings value to it. And I think for a lot of shops and a lot of products and services and whatever its fine that they still get used but they're not shocking anymore, they're not beautiful anymore, they are just small updates from something that once grasped the attention.
And we need to find this beauty again in a lot of things. And the beauty starts from trying things and the beauty starts from, yeah, just sending it out there and people starting over again. There is no shame in starting over, like, people think success is like this thing of continuing never ending success stories.
[0:44:40] You had a golden idea and then every year 3% and within 20 years I'm gonna sell it. And no, I think it's a mind numbing thing to do, if you have the talent to create something, and you just perpetuate It for 20 years with the growth of 3% you're not using your talent. Your talent you should use to start again and start again and create this and you have so much more to offer to the world that continuing the thing that you already brought there.
Mike: That's why a lot of founders burn out too, cause they love the startup creation phase and they're just like shareholders meetings, 3%...
Vince: Yeah and it's a weird mindset that actually the people that are these creators that they get forced into this mindset of repetition. And yeah I think we should incentivize people to be more like that and that's again a reason for incubator to be so free.
[0:45:40] Just give this platform to these founders because these founders are probably the people that are gonna bring the beauty to the world and give them all the freedom and facilitate them how you can. And you'll be amazed at what comes out of it. Its Also that people need to stop labeling people with a certain talent. I see a lot of people if they build for example a clothing brand they get forced by their environment to always be in their clothing niche. Maybe this person Is just a really good founder and he could start fruit company, or he could start a new rock band like the example we gave with the professional sports player.
[0:46:04] The thing is, the creators are creators not in the specific subject but they have this creative mindset that you can apply to any subject. So, don't lock them in and give them the freedom to try new things.
Maybe they create great music or great art because they just have this experimental trying mindset instead of the mindset of repeating things.
Mike: It's like what we expect from CEOs, you know, if you play in a band, you're not gonna record one album and then keep changing the artwork every year and that becomes your only job. Like you're gonna make more music or ongoing. So why don't we expect the CEOs to do the exact same thing.
[0:46:38] Vince: Very good analogy and yeah, I think it all has to do with how we think in school. Like, we go to school and we are taught that we need to learn something and then repeat it our whole lives and we apply the same logic to almost anything and I think that's a weird thing also in the future that we need to break. It's all about experimenting and trying things. You cannot do anything wrong If you just keep trying, in my opinion. Its all about just let things happened and just go with it.
Get back this freedom to create
[0:47:12] Mike: I think there's momentum with that creativity too. If you've got a group of people constantly coming up with new ideas and they're releasing them and theres no responsibility to make this thing improve 3% each year. You're just like okay it's out there and other people in the community or the blockchain can take it over if they want to and improve it.
Vince: And its also like what I said before like a lot of ideas they are a bit ahead of their time. And the ideas then get shot down because they cannot be monetized at that moment or they cannot be fully accounted for why should it be there. But that shouldn't be a reason for why it shouldn't be built already In my opinion. Just get it out there and put it up for the world to share it, open source it or whatever you wanna do with it because someone who is starting out with their idea might google it and might need exactly what you just created but you couldn't have predicted it when you've created it.
[0:48:04] If you just put it out there you create the building blocks for other people to do great stuff.
Maybe there are 7 links in between of all these crazy things that nobody understands but then some guy in Canada comes up with an idea and he thinks I need these 7 things, lets google if they are there. And he comes exactly at these things and then all of the sudden the need for these things becomes clear.
And this can take ten years and there's no shame in just putting it out there for ten years, you never know who you'll inspire or who you'll empower with what you've created.
[0:48:32] Don't try to predict it, just believe that the fact that you put it out there is a creation already because you can think of it you can execute it and you can put it out there so now it's already in this sphere of being simply indexed already by google it's already the first start. People can start randomly coming up to, you never know how they got to it but it starts living, and its start being like an organism, like a baby you've created and it will get momentum in the end.
Euvie: It could even send micro payments back to each of its components that it uses and the components that end up being used a lot like seven years after their creation.
Vince: Yeah I think this might be in the future that it's about finding these small things where you can take some of your knowledge and thinking power and just defining it in the blockchain and thereby helping people maybe a hundred years after your death still.
[0:49:26] But it will be recorded and it will be impactful and it will still contribute to whatever you want to support.
Like we also had this example today that with blockchain we can start building wallets in time. We can say that this park here in the city needs to have four trees always. And if it detects that there are not four trees it should trigger a message for four trees be planted. And we can program the software to be active only as if in hundred years so we can start impacting things even in the future like that.
[0:50:00] And it's all about connecting all these things and just contributing your part for the future generations and for anyone else on the planet to do better things and to greater things. Why waste time on doing the same things all of us. Let's just all do everything once and then continue and build on that.
If we do that with 8 billion people, my goodness we can do crazy things.
[0:50:21] Euvie: I love that yeah, even in business you know I'm thinking about how many things we had to start from the ground up and do the same things that somebody else already did and it's so repetitive and its taxing on you. Because you only have one life and you're doing all this redundant stuff.
Yeah and your unique talent is the creation after you've done all the repetitive tasks.
All the repetitive tasks take away so much of the energy to actually get to this. I think in the future also ,like, business is also a concept that's also outdated. I think for every task you should have like a micro business. To just act for one transaction, say for example you create this artwork for me or you write this article or whatever. I just set up a business between the three of us where we share just for this item that we've created.

[0:51:12] And now we still have this idea of creating a business and everything I do in a year I bring under this business and I think this is also mindset that we need to let go of. That everything needs to be so formal in a fortress behind walls with pyramids and all this stuff in place.
I think we should think lightly about interacting with each other. I think all these necessary rules that we think are necessary right now, they are just blockages for things that are so simple in nature. I just want to do a transaction with you guys, what's keeping me? Why should I set up all these things in place just to do that? It should become lightweight and therefor and also become more democratic for everyone to start doing that. I think there are so many people who don't feel comfortable starting a business.
[0:51:58] Because they heard about the paperwork they heard about the tax offers, the checks and god knows all these things. And they feel fear that this part they cannot do. They're very confident about their own niche or about their creative idea but the whole business part around it they don't feel comfortable with.
We should make it as easy as possible and take all those things away and I think a lot of people would be entrepreneurial. Yeah I think that's a very important thing in the future.
[0:52:24] I love thinking about it from the maslows hierarchy of needs perspective. Where you take away all of the crap that people have to do in their daily lives that's just, it's just repetitive, like taking care of their food and clothing and even setting up social interactions. And so they can focus on self-actualization and doing the things that really bring value to the world.
I think it's also the, another example is that, transactions are so wasteful with the blockchain that you can divide a salary for example into tiny drops of every microsecond during the month so your salary can come in every microsecond instead of one moment in the month. Because the behavior of the people now of how they look at their bank account. The money comes in and it's a high amount in their bank amount, they pay rent and they pay all the other expenses. They think in the staircase mindset of needing to achieve a high staircase and so that it can pay for all the bills that follow it.
[0:53:23] So, you have this mindset of reaching an absolute height constantly. I think with the blockchain you can start shifting this behavior and if you have the droplets of salary coming in consistently. And on the other end you start paying things consistently in micro seconds, like your energy bill or whatever. Instead of this mindset of seeing staircase going down you will start seeing flows that need to be in balance. And you start thinking different about money, there is no point anymore in having something really high, you're just constantly looking at your bank account and it could be visualized just as the scale that needs to be in balance.
[0:53:58] And there's no need to go for a bigger this or higher that, and whatever. Its just about finding the balance between what your input and your output.
Mike: What do you think are some of the other business models like you mentioned micro transactions coming off of each contract you create. There's like creating would be another one of crowdfunding, creating basic income for developers to be constantly creating new things.
[0:54:21] Vince: The thing with most people is that they get great ideas in the weirdest moments but they also realize that they might not be the best possible entrepreneur for it or that they don't have any entrepreneurial experience at all. Because its outside of their field or whatever. But they are willing to maybe share that idea, put it on the blockchain and then put a small bounty behind it like for example 5 euros if someone fixes this or that problem for me.
And maybe within a month two thousand other people all across the world they will all do the same thing, and all of the sudden you get this incentive list of problems to fix where the funding is in place already, it's just a matter of finding an entrepreneur. And you totally shift the landscape around that is existing now, that an entrepreneur needs to find the money because most entrepreneurs, this also applies for myself. Like I've been in many different industries because I just enjoyed problem fixing I enjoyed a process of tackling something.
[0:55:14] I don't have a particular passion for a certain industry but I enjoy this process. So for me it would be super optimal to see all these opportunities laying around. And if then the idea with virtual reality gets combined we can start listing not only opportunities for businesses but you can also say we have a lot of minor tasks like "swipe the streets" or "mow this lawn" or whatever. It's just gonna put it on there, and five people are gonna like all walk through the park and they all contribute 20 cents to if the lawn gets mown.
And if you then have VR or AR and you just walk through the park, you see literally money laying there or incentive laying there to start mowing the lawn. You can just apply this to the whole world, you can just walk around and everywhere just see these opportunities where you can contribute something because other people have specified that there is a need for something, and they already put in place for people to pick this up.
[0:56:11] And I think that way you can look differently at work. Now, at work we have a specific role for our entire year or whatever. But maybe then going to work is just putting your goggles on and start walking around and start picking up all these needs that people have and start fulfilling them. You can feel needed by mowing the lawn in the first hour of the day and maybe afterwards you're coding some software. It becomes totally fluid how you contribute and thereby earn money. And you just walk around. The whole world can become interactive like. Its'... It's a beautiful world.
[0:56:46] Euvie: I think it's amazing because it also makes you feel really connected to the people around you. You're constantly contributing something good to your neighborhood.
Vince: Yeah and you can see literally if you just walk around with the augmented reality, that you can see the faces of the people that left the money there and you can see maybe instantly the relations you have to these people.
Its literally like for example in the music industry that when you bought the cd only the producers were thanked, but maybe you should thank all the people buying the music. And maybe with that park, you will literally see a thank you from that park for all the people that contribute to the park.
[0:57:21] And you feel like the park is something of you, because you once contributed to mowing the lawn, or you once put bounty there for the need.
And I think that way you will start feeling a responsibility for things around you instead of feeling separated from that. And like "the municipality needs to take care of this" or whatever. Its about connection again.
Euvie: So speaking of municipalities, how can they get involved for example if a politician or a big investor wants to contribute to something like this but they just can't get their had around the idea.
[0:57:50] Vince: Yeah I think that for the government or municipalities its about seeing the opportunities that you can actually leverage the willingness and leverage the power of the communities instead of seeing it as something that you need to correct for them. Because if you start incentivizing people to fix the problems that you have as a society or municipality or whatever. People will start picking it up and doing it for you and there can be way smaller government than there is now.
Or there can be a totally divided government where maybe you have like 2 3 people elected as park management people that get over the lawn mower selection. I don't know.
[0:58:28] You can put the need there but it's only a pool of people that can mow the lawn. Like you can create a new kind of government in a sense. But it's also that for investors I think that the financial system as it is it's not gonna be the biggest system anymore in the world.
The future is about these connections that we constantly make and I think the investment that you should now make is to position yourself as early as possible within these all these connections. The earlier you are the more connected transaction will get. Like if I do transaction now in the blockchain, the transaction will make so many rounds in the next 5 years in comparison to a transaction done 5 years from now. I have way more transaction reputation already.
[0:59:10] So I advise investors to get in early even if they don't know fully yet that they're gonna get a financial award out of it but position themselves as the facilitators and the connectors because in the future you will get a back reference of where you connected of where you made an impact and that will position yourself to do something. So get in as early as possible.
I know the blockchain is still a hype thing for people, but its also about to change in a very quick time. People are thinking it's something that's gonna go in the far future but it's going extremely fast. And I honestly think that if like banks are falling down that you will see a quick adoption pretty quickly.
[0:59:49] Mike: I love this idea that you can be someone who's maybe a little more financially well off and walk down the street and throw bounties and everything just to improve. Its like micro investment in your community.
Vince: Yeah exactly, and in the future you can also start connecting this to politics for example where you might say okay, we only want people to be representing us as a village or as a city, that have a clear reputation of contributing to this city. So start building your reputation because you might be needing it in the future. Because if you don't bring value to us as a whole. Yeah, it's difficult to maintain the position in the future. It's very good to start being transparent about it instead of just a financial gain. It should be about the impact that you make
[1:00:36] Mike: Being a politician change will change into like a high honor thing that the society bestows upon you that it's a badge of honor.
Vince: Yeah and it's the same now with the big investors where they do it maybe for the capital gain or something like that. I think we need more entrepreneurs or investors that wanna show off that they made this park so beautiful instead of that they made a million euros. Like what's the status about earning a million euros because you outsmarted someone. No I think there is way more pride to be gained if you can say he I contributed here, and I've facilitated that. This and this could happen and this person could do this and this people can do that and it will make you feel more needed for the world than anything else.
[1:01:19] And I think that's in the end what it comes down, the feeling of happiness is the feeling of belonging and being needed and connected and loved. This all starts with getting all these connections going. And it can be super small tasks but they all matter in the end.
Euvie: I love the idea of a governments incentivizing certain things and looking at things as an opportunity rather than the problem that they have to correct so if there's a broken path somewhere, instead of looking at it like "oh its an eye sore" they can put a bounty on it and then certain company could come in and fix it. And you could regulate this company like, they have to have at least fifty paths in the past so that they qualify, so they have to be good.
[1:02:06] Vince: Exactly, and then also for municipalities about creating opportunities for citizens instead of monitoring and correcting them. So, a government could be something that is loved so much because of it because it's this bringer of opportunities.
Like, it can totally shift around of how people look at politics.
Mike: There could also be this element of quality control where there is bounties for people to check that he job is done. Instead of having to create this complicated software architecture, you could just say "yep, the job is done."
[1:02:35] Vince: Maybe also with the super market products like if I buy the coffee, instead of just paying the super market, I'm also paying again someone to check that the farmer really was treated well. Also, I don't just buy the product and give it value, but I also apply some logic to the transaction to also make sure that there is some good to the transaction. And thereby I improve the system for the next buyer and the next buyer.
Mike: It's a fascinating combination involved in all these things, augmented reality laying bounties out, artificial intelligence interpreting what you want.
[1:03:08] Vince: Its like Pokemon GO! but then for adding value for humanity and for the people around you. And you saw how Pokemon GO! got popular pretty quickly.
So I definitely see an opportunity if you build something like this. The beauty of it again is that you can start so small it just takes a couple of people to program something and experiment with it. We can try it here in the city, you share it with the world. And it can be implemented everywhere super quickly. And it doesn't take a huge investment, it doesn't take an army, it doesn't take a factory, it's just laptops, some good idea and people really fairly distributing tasks and saying like hey I would like if someone did this, I would like if someone did that.
[1:03:50] And other people really feeling like "hey I can contribute here because someone appreciates what I do here." And that's also this feeling of appreciation, like most people have a job but they don't feel appreciated. Whereas in this system you can walk around and appreciation is all around you, if you contribute. It makes you feel good, it makes you feel happy in life I think, yeah.
Mike: Fantastic. So exciting.
Vince: Yeah, exciting times.
Mike: Vince, thanks for joining us it was really great to have you.
Vince! Thank you very much and I'm looking forward to the incubator and all the great things that you guys are gonna build. So uhm..
Mike: To the future!

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FTP033: Blockchain - The Building Blocks for a New Society, with Vince Meens

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Blockchain technology has been making its way into the mainstream over the last year. Far from its anarchist-leaning Bitcoin beginnings, it has been getting adopted by large banks and governments like Dubai. Because of its adoption by financial institution, blockchain has become almost analogous with financial technology (fintech) in the minds of many.

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Podcast by the Wall Street Journal about how AI learns about our world through video games.

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Engineers of artificial intelligence are using videogames to teach machines about humans and our world. And it's working. Autonomous vehicles may someday save lives using skills learned from popular games like 'Grand Theft Auto."

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Concert footage for 'Hatsune Miku', a digital avatar created for a software which emulates singing.

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Complete mediation of the body in digital music. Gorillaz are a virtual band in which the cartoon 'bandmates' create the music in place of the real musician behind it, Damon Albarn.

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When they came up with the idea for Gorillaz, Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett wrote a manifesto. It fit on a single sheet of paper, but they've since lost it and wish they could remember what it said.
This article has been reproduced in a new format and may be missing content or contain faulty links. Contact wiredlabs@wired.com to report an issue.
Not that it matters - Gorillaz is a virtual band. It doesn't quite exist. Its four members (2D, Murdoc Niccals, Russel Hobbs, and Noodle), designed and drawn by Hewlett, are fictional. The group inhabits Kong Studios, high on a mountain in Essex, northeast of London. There are no mountains in Essex. The band exists enough to make music, to produce videos, to remix, and to be remixed.

Albarn (music) and Hewlett (art) are the spirit behind Gorillaz. Their first outing, five years ago, remixed the whole idea of what a band could be. The iconography was grabbed from everywhere - sci-fi, anime, rock videos - while the music was a hip hop-based cut-and-paste of poppy melodies, old horror movie themes, and any sonic style available. The debut album, Gorillaz, sold an impressive 6 million copies worldwide, making it the most successful album ever by a virtual group. For good measure, Albarn and Hewlett released the music in four versions - an original; two sets of remixes; and a DVD with accompanying animation, interactive games, and performance videos.

The band's new disc, Demon Days, is like the first one - only more so. Coproduced by remix icon Danger Mouse, it includes a children's choir and a fable narrated by Dennis Hopper. And its obscenely catchy songs take up permanent residence in the back of your mind.

I caught up with Albarn and Hewlett for a rare behind-the-curtain interview. We met in West London's Notting Hill, where dozens of cultures collide. Hewlett arrived first, unshaven, with a foxy grin. He created the Tank Girl comic more than 15 years ago. His drawing style is street-smart, cynical, brilliant, funny. His studio, located beneath a highway overpass, is called Zombie Flesh Eaters.

Albarn turned up next: only marginally less unshaven, with intense, almost luminous, eyes. He hit fame in the early '90s as the lead singer of Britpop band Blur.

It's raining, and the three of us are at the back of a caf� done up in pink and purple stripes, sitting slightly too close for comfort.

GAIMAN: How did Gorillaz come about? HEWLETT: We were flatmates. One day, we were home watching MTV with our eyes just kind of glazed. Because if you watch MTV for too long, it's a bit like hell - there's nothing of substance there. So we got this idea for a cartoon band, something that would be a comment on that. ALBARN: We're the generation whose stars come from Pop Idol and celebrity-wrestling shows. And it's all a bit like a cartoon, really.

One of the delights of Gorillaz is that it grabs ideas from everywhere. What's the motivation for that? ALBARN: More and more, cultural groups are cross-pollinating, and we're getting much more interesting art as a result. Being in Blur has allowed me to travel and hear the music that's being made all over the world. On one song on Demon Days, you can hear that I pulled in some reggae elements and added a touch of Latin music. Then at the end, a Glen Campbell-style orchestra comes in. HEWLETT: The coolest thing is that kids are catching the references we put in the music and the visuals, and then they're going out to learn about the original pieces of culture we were inspired by. The payoff is that the next generation of artists and writers might say, "I learned a lot from listening to the Gorillaz when I was 15." ALBARN: If I hadn't spent all those years learning how to play instruments, I'd be using a sampler to put all these pieces together. Instead, I use a songwriting method that's a lot like sampling without actually digitally sampling. Gorillaz is how I take everything I hear and filter it. It's been really helpful having Danger Mouse onboard for that aspect of it. He's an exceptional American. [ Laughs.]

I love the idea of his Grey Album - the conceit of mixing such disparate sources. ALBARN: It was perfect, wasn't it? It's what I love about the crazy process of making music - the moments like that. It was just such a great idea. Danger Mouse is now working on a bunch of other records, translating his ideas about remixing into all sorts of other projects. HEWLETT: And he does it like a young Jimi Hendrix. ALBARN: [ Laughs.] And he looks the part as well. It's really exciting to find like minds.

Gorillaz seems to have gone from small indie band to huge supergroup. It's as if the Archies had stayed together and turned into the Beach Boys. ALBARN: Well, we see it this way: Gorillaz shouldn't be denied any of the affectations of genuine rock stars just because they're cartoons. They've been very successful, so now they have more money and they can make bigger, more grandiose videos.

The paradox is that by being completely artificial, Gorillaz is a lot less artificial than a boy band or any of these other constructed entities we're all used to. HEWLETT: Exactly. If you're going to pretend to be somebody you're not - which is the whole point of being a rock star - then why not just invent fake characters and have them do it all for you? ALBARN: I hope we can keep doing it this way - making music and art that are pure products of our influences while not really having to let the whole celebrity side of it get in the way. Then maybe more virtual bands will come out and do the same thing. And then hopefully there will be so many of us that people will ask themselves, What in the world is going on here? We're buying magazines full of cartoons!

You redesigned the characters for Demon Days. You can actually see a progression. ALBARN: That was important because the characters were dated. They needed updating. HEWLETT: The idea was to break some of the rules of animation. You know, cartoon characters aren't really supposed to change over time. ALBARN: The alternative would have been to add Scrappy-Doo to the band. HEWLETT: Ah, that would have been great! But my version of Scrappy-Doo would be really annoying. Way more annoying than the real Scrappy-Doo ever was, and he would sing just like the Chipmunks.

You're paying homage through imagery from lots of different cultures. ALBARN: Yes. I came back with lots of inspiration from Mongolia. There was one moment in particular that inspired some of the darker elements of Demon Days. I bought lots of old Betty Boop cartoons with really bad, aggressive Chinese overdubs and watched them with my daughter on a train traveling through Northern China. The area is utterly destroyed by all the farming - there was a 200-mile stretch where all the trees were dead. The scene felt totally apocalyptic. HEWLETT: I took a lot of influences from Studio Ghibli, which is the Japanese animation studio that made Spirited Away and Castle in the Sky. They're like the Japanese version of Disney - but without all the schmaltz. They make beautiful films that are also a bit dark, which is how I want Gorillaz animation to turn out. Another influence was the knockoff art that you see in Mexico. They've got such an eye for color and design there. I love it. ALBARN: South America really embraced us last time. I went to one of the open-air markets, and there were loads of paintings of the Gorillaz characters for sale. It was really cool.

Sure, because you knew you'd made it then. It's like you knew The Simpsons had made it when you saw all that knockoff Bart stuff. HEWLETT: Yeah, there were paintings of Murdoc as Wolverine right there along with Homer Simpson as King Kong. The fake merchandise we saw on that tour was better than our own stuff. We went out and bought a bunch of it.

You also seem inspired by horror movie imagery. Why are there so many zombies in your videos? ALBARN: Well, because everybody on TV's a fucking zombie, right? I mean, watch a 50 Cent video where he's in the middle of a club, and he's just surrounded by zombies. The Gorillaz cartoons seem more real to me than the actual people on TV. Because at least you know that there's some intelligence behind the cartoons, and there's a lot of work that's gone into it, so it can't all be just a lie. HEWLETT: Yeah, I'm much more at home with Daffy Duck than I am with a real person. But the whole zombie thing is an obsession of mine. I love zombie films. Once, I looked out the window where I work and realized that everybody was walking around in circles with their mobile phones attached to their heads - it reminded me of that scene from Dawn of the Dead in the car lot. That was a big inspiration. ALBARN: These are the seeds of the future, aren't they? You need to identify them.

Neil Gaiman is the author of American Gods and creator of the Sandman comic series.

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When they came up with the idea for Gorillaz, Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett wrote a manifesto. It fit on a single sheet of paper, but they've since lost it and wish they could remember what it said. This article has been reproduced in a new format and may be missing content or contain faulty links.

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Ted talk on the how the body has become digitally mediated.

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The Digitally Mediated Body: Christian Ervin at TEDxSitka

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Tinder's resident sociologist looks at the social aspect of online dating.

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Like so many things in life, romance and sexuality are being rewired by apps. Since 2013, the use of Internet dating services like Tinder and OKCupid has tripled among Americans ages 18-24, according to the Pew Research Center.

It's a seismic shift, but what does it mean for society? Most online daters think it's a great way to meet people, and a growing number of marriages stem from relationships that started online. But dating apps can lead to uncomfortable encounters, especially for women. To help understand the social impact of online dating-and feed that intelligence back into its popular app-Tinder employs a sociologist named Jessica Carbino. We talked to Carbino about her job, the research she conducts, and what Tinder users can learn from science to find better matches.

Why does Tinder need a sociologist on staff?

A company like Tinder needs a sociologist because we're trying to understand what individuals desire and how they behave. A sociological lens to understand a user's dating history is pretty logical. Individuals don't operate in a bubble and they are quite affected by the institutions in which they're operating. Tinder and online dating generally are two of those institutions. The options that we have regarding the individuals that we date are largely structured by the communities that we're embedded in and the individuals with whom we regularly have contact. Tinder provides people with a way to have a larger degree of contact.

What's your day-to-day job like?

My job is to understand user behavior and then use that understanding to create a better experience for users. I employ several methodological approaches that I was trained in while doing my doctorate at UCLA to understand user behavior ranging from surveys, focus groups, content analysis. All of these methods provide me with a different perspective of how the product should be oriented toward our users. Day to day, my job is pretty variable. I'm inspecting surveys. I'm analyzing data related to our users' preferences. Evaluating prospective features. The common thread throughout my day-to-day is that I'm trying to understand how best to improve the Tinder user experience.

Tell me more about the user research Tinder does. Can you give me some examples?

"There's a very strong percentage of our users who don't smile in their photographs. People who smile are deemed to be more kind and approachable."

A big project that was done about six months ago was one where I analyzed about 12,000 photos of users throughout the country-New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta-and I analyzed their photos to understand how the users presented themselves. There were 141 variables that were analyzed over the course of those photographs. Were they tilting their heads in a certain direction? Did they have a selfie? What were they wearing? What was the color of their clothing? Who was in the picture with them? Was it parents? Somebody of the other gender? Did they have a dog? A cat? A tiger? All of those things were part of the analysis and can help you understand how people present themselves.

What kinds of things can you learn from that? And how might that translate back into the product?

A lot of our users tell us that they don't understand how to present themselves and that they want to improve their profiles. So I would be able to find that approximately 72% of our users present themselves wearing very muted colors rather than a bold color. That's counterintuitive, given that if you want to stand out, presumably you would wear a more bold color. So we were able to convey to our users, "Hey, if you want to stand out from the pack, don't wear that little black dress. Put on something fuchsia."

I learn a lot about how men and women behave and what their preferences are. One thing to remember is that Tinder is in approximately 196 countries. What we find in the U.S. context is not necessarily applicable in a context across the world. One thing that people don't understand is that in Asian countries and in India, for example, people tend to use Tinder to make friends more than they do in the U.S. or Western Europe or Latin America. That's something that's relevant and that we think about a lot at Tinder. A lot of my research is related to understanding how Tinder affects different demographic groups.

So, if behavior varies across geographic regions, does the product work differently depending on where users are located? Do you use geography in your research?

The product that we have released now is relatively applicable across markets. No glaring cultural conflicts. We're considering new features. We considered that when developing Super Like, for example. With Super Like, our users wanted to know, how can I stand out? How can I show them I'm really interested? We tested it for about a month in Australia before releasing it globally. Will the feature be well received in Greece? In Turkey? In Taiwan? Tinder Plus was tested in seven very diverse markets for about four months before we decided to start to roll it out to the rest of the world. Part of that testing was figuring out what was working, what people liked, evolving the feature into something that resonated for most people in the world. I think we take that approach with most things. We test. Finding out how these features are used and how they resonate with the audience is super important to us.

For example, what went into Tinder Plus were two of our most-requested features at the time. One of them was Rewind: the ability to undo a swipe. And the passport feature, which is the ability to change your location and swipe anywhere in the world. That's something that really only Tinder, as a global dating app with tens of millions of users around the world, can really do. That was in response to what our users wanted.

You mentioned surveys as one of the types of research that you do. What kinds of things do you ask people? How do those surveys work?

We do them all the time. Those surveys can be global or targeted toward certain geographic areas or demographic groups. I could target men. I could target women. I could target people between the ages of 18 and 24. I'm able to track changes over time in people's perception of the app: Which aspects of the app they like the most. Which aspects they would like to see improved. How they first heard about Tinder. What made them decide to sign up for Tinder. We're really trying to gauge how they're interacting with the app, as well as their experience on the app.

It's pervasive: We get called a hookup app all the time. In one of our recent surveys, we found that 80% of Tinder users are seeking a relationship that is not a hookup. They're looking for something more substantial. There are all of these negative stories in the media about Tinder being a hookup app. It's disconcerting to hear that when so many of our users are looking for something more substantial.

What does the methodology look like?

They are large samples. I can't tell you exact numbers, but we get several thousand respondents per survey. So we obviously have substantial ability to understand variation within and between groups. Of age, gender, sexual orientation. One of them was about 300,000 [respondents]. These are very substantial surveys.

Do you analyze the text of people's profiles? That seems like it would be a goldmine of insights.

"We get called a hookup app all the time. In one of our recent surveys, we found that 80% of Tinder users are seeking a relationship that is not a hookup. They're looking for something more substantial."

I do not think we have done that yet. We will, but that's not something that we've embarked upon.

Do you look at external research into online dating generally?

Yes, you need to read about what other people are doing to know if your techniques are good. We're always reading about the latest studies that are coming out.

What do you think the broader impact of Tinder is? Is it changing the overall dynamic in dating?

One thing that people don't realize-and why there's a hookup stigma-is that the vast majority of our users meet up within a week. They don't meet up the same day. Tinder has certainly revolutionized the dating market in a way that has been incredible. It's changed how people meet. It's changed people's lives.

At the same time, I think that Tinder and online dating have emerged as the primary social institution that has replaced or supplemented a very fragmented market by which people meet. Historically, people have met through family and friends. But now given delays in marriage and childbearing generally... It's becoming far harder to find someone to ultimately mate with. We know that one in three couples who married within the last year met their partner online.

A lot of women report having uncomfortable experiences via dating apps. Is that something you guys are paying attention to? How do you respond to it?

"Women are less likely to respond to messages from men who are incredibly attractive. For men, the opposite applies. Women associate attractiveness with negative characteristics like arrogance and narcissism."

We know that when individuals are removed from interactions where they're in the presence of others, they may act differently. Sometimes more boldly given the relative lack of social accountability. This is true both online and offline. The norms regarding online dating interactions are very much still being negotiated. We don't know what exactly the proper etiquette is yet. Our data suggests that this behavior is very much confined to a very limited number of people and is not at all common.

We've instituted very strong mechanisms at Tinder to provide our users with an outlet to report undesired contact. Users who are offenders are reprimanded and educated about how to act in an inappropriate way. If people persist and act in a way that we don't think is appropriate, we kick them off the app. The media really perpetuates these myths through these blogs. These blogs are not representative of Tinder.

How does Tinder use design to encourage civility?

Given that we're linked with Facebook, we show mutual friends in common. Individuals who have friends in common will have a higher degree of social accountability and will not act in a way that's inappropriate.

Are there any findings that you've come across that have been especially interesting or surprising?

It's interesting how we present ourselves in our profiles. It's very much a curated choice. We know that individuals often seek social context and help from friends to create their profiles. We think about how others perceive us when we're presenting ourselves. We find that women are more likely to wear formal clothing, as are men, when they're presenting themselves. Women wear dresses. Men are more likely to wear button down shirts or jackets or suits. So it's interesting to think about the type of image that people are trying to portray of themselves. Women are also more likely to wear heavier makeup in their online dating profiles. The vast majority of women wear heavy makeup in their profiles and they're more likely to be swiped right on than women who are wearing no makeup or more natural makeup. That has to do with findings related to biological fitness. When women wear makeup, they're more likely to have a more symmetrical face. Facial symmetry is really critical in determining attractiveness, particularly for women.

We also find that selfies are one of the most [common] photos used of individuals. It's interesting to see how social phenomena pour into Tinder. We often provide users feedback about things like head shots, for example. In my research, it's interesting how attractiveness may play out differently for men and women. Women, according to my dissertation, are less likely to respond to messages from men who are incredibly attractive. For men, the opposite applies. Men are more likely to respond to women who are more attractive. This is a relatively counterintuitive finding, but it's attributed to women associating attractiveness with negative characteristics like arrogance and narcissism. So we tell our users, mainly men, that they shouldn't upload head shots.

So clearly, there's a disparity between how men and women approach online dating and what their expectations are. How wide is this gulf, in your experience?

People are always asking me: What do men and women want? I say to them, men and women are not looking for completely different things. Women obviously care about being with someone who is attractive. It's just that the relative importance of the values or characteristics that they want may vary. And those characteristics may have different meanings, depending on what gender you are. And different levels of importance.

"People should not have group photographs, especially as their primary picture."

It's not only a biological issue. It's also a social issue. For many years, women-before they became active labor force participants-socially were valued primarily based on their physical attractiveness. Men have obviously changed and they do desire more egalitarian relationships and they do desire women who are career-oriented now.

Other than the things we've talked about, is there anything you'd offer as advice to users on how to step up their game? If I'm not getting that many matches on Tinder, based on the research you've seen, what should I do?

There's a very strong percentage of our users who don't smile in their photographs. I always found that to be very interesting, because people intuit a lot from people's facial expressions. People who smile are deemed to be more kind and approachable. The face is a very strong mirror to the rest of your personality. For example, men with a softer jawline are considered to be kinder or more compassionate. I would strongly recommend that people smile.

Another thing I would say is that people should not have group photographs, especially as their primary picture. While there are studies that talk about the cheerleader effect of individuals making you look slightly better if they're more attractive than you, they're still the more attractive person in the picture and the other person will be considering them. So you always want to be the most attractive person in the picture. They ultimately will meet your friends, but they shouldn't be thinking about them on the first date. People are concerned that if they don't show themselves in a group that people will think they live under a rock and have no social connections. But the vast majority of people don't really think that about people. They want to see you. They want to get to know you. So just present yourself.

What is the story that you want to present to other people? The profile, with the pictures and the blurb that people can share about themselves, is really critical in creating the image of who you are.

Also, writing a bio is critical. I can't tell you how many people tell us that their bio is one of the most critical factors to consider when deciding whether or not to start messaging with someone. Especially women. Men should definitely have a bio. It's not a negotiable thing. Women want to know about you. Providing people with insight as to who you are is really critical. It also provides people with fodder for conversations. My sister just went to Mexico. So she posted a picture of herself in Mexico City. Somebody could ask her about that. Hey! You were in Mexico City. What were you doing there? People need to have material to be able to start conversations. When I was single, I had a bio that said, "I love to travel. My next destination is X. What is yours?" So I provided them with the opening line to talk to me. I highly recommend people do that as well.

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How To Get A Match, According to Tinder's Sociologist

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Like so many things in life, romance and sexuality are being rewired by apps. Since 2013, the use of Internet dating services like Tinder and OKCupid has tripled among Americans ages 18-24, according to the Pew Research Center. It's a seismic shift, but what does it mean for society?

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A short documentary on social media's affects on self image. Clip of video in the middle is from My Pale Skin's video, "YOU LOOK DISGUSTING." Check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWTRwj9t-vU Second clip was from blogilate's, "The 'Perfect' Body." Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsL7W-GHhJA

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Ulrike Schultz on identity work in the wake of the rise of social media.

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How Social Media Shapes Identity | Ulrike Schultze | TEDxSMU

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Staying secure as connectivity in the next decade increases.

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Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech

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Many experts say lack of trust will not be a barrier to increased public reliance on the internet. Those who are hopeful that trust will grow expect technical and regulatory change will combat users' concerns about security and privacy. Those who have doubts about progress say people are inured to risk, addicted to convenience and will not be offered alternatives to online interaction. Some expect the very nature of trust will change.

Trust is a social, economic and political binding agent. A vast research literature on trust and "social capital" documents the connections between trust and personal happiness, trust and other measures of well-being, trust and collective problem solving, trust and economic development and trust and social cohesion. Trust is the lifeblood of friendship and caregiving. When trust is absent, all kinds of societal woes unfold - including violence, social chaos and paralyzing risk-aversion.

We didn't focus on how you could wreck this system intentionally [when designing the internet]. Vinton Cerf

Trust has not been having a good run in recent years, and there is considerable concern that people's uses of the internet are a major contributor to the problem. For starters, the internet was not designed with security protections or trust problems in mind. As Vinton Cerf, one of the creators of internet protocols, put it: "We didn't focus on how you could wreck this system intentionally." (Cerf is a respondent to the question addressed in this report; his worried quote is featured here.)

Moreover, the rise of the internet and social media has enabled entirely new kinds of relationships and communities in which trust must be negotiated with others whom users do not see, with faraway enterprises, under circumstances that are not wholly familiar, in a world exploding with information of uncertain provenance used by actors employing ever-proliferating strategies to capture users' attention. In addition, the internet serves as a conduit for the public's privacy to be compromised through surveillance and cyberattacks and additional techniques for them to fall victim to scams and bad actors.

If that were not challenging enough, the emergence of trust-jarring digital interactions has also coincided with a sharp decline in trust for major institutions, such as government (and Congress and the presidency), the news media, public schools, the church and banks.

The question arises, then: What will happen to online trust in the coming decade? In summer 2016, Pew Research Center and Elon University's Imagining the Internet Center conducted a large canvassing of technologists, scholars, practitioners, strategic thinkers and other leaders, asking them to react to this framing of the issue:
Billions of people use cellphones and the internet now and hundreds of millions more are expected to come online in the next decade. At the same time, more than half of those who use the internet and cellphones still do not use that connectivity for shopping, banking, other important transactions and key social interactions. As more people move online globally, both opportunities and threats grow. Will people's trust in their online interactions, their work, shopping, social connections, pursuit of knowledge and other activities be strengthened or diminished over the next 10 years?
Some 1,233 responded to this nonscientific canvassing: 48% chose the option that trust will be strengthened; 28% of these particular respondents believe that trust will stay the same; and 24% predicted that trust will be diminished. (See " About this canvassing of experts " for further details about the limits of this sample.)

Participants were asked to explain their answers and were offered the following prompt to consider: Which areas of life might experience the greatest impact? Economic activity? Health care? Education? Political and civic life? Cultural life? Will the impacts be mostly positive or negative? What role might the spread of blockchain systems play?

Many of these respondents made references to changes now being implemented or being considered to enhance the online trust environment. They mentioned the spread of encryption, better online identity-verification systems, tighter security standards in internet protocols, new laws and regulations, new techno-social systems like crowdsourcing and up-voting/down-voting or challenging online content.

One particular focus of participants' answers involved blockchain technology, because our follow-up prompt specifically asked people to consider the role of blockchain in the future of trust on the internet. Blockchain is an encryption-protected digital ledger that is designed to facilitate transactions and interactions that are validated in a way that cannot be edited. Proponents have high hopes for the spread of blockchains. The Economist magazine has argued that blockchain "lets people who have no particular confidence in each other collaborate without having to go through a neutral central authority .... In essence it is a shared, trusted, public ledger that everyone can inspect, but which no one single user controls." A more-complete outline of how blockchain operates and these survey respondents' predictions about its future can be found in the discussion about Theme 4 later in this report.

The majority of participants in this canvassing wrote detailed elaborations explaining their positions. Some chose to have their names connected to their answers; others opted to respond anonymously. These findings do not represent all possible points of view, but they do reveal a wide range of striking observations. Respondents collectively articulated six major themes that are introduced and explained below and are expanded upon in sections that begin later in this report.

The following introductory section presents an overview of the themes found among the written responses, including a small selection of representative quotes supporting each point. Some comments are lightly edited for style or due to length.

Theme 1: Trust will strengthen because systems will improve and people will adapt to them and more broadly embrace them

About half the respondents to this canvassing believe that trust online will be strengthened in the next decade. Their reasoning generally flows in two streams: 1) Some expect to see improved technology emerge that will allow people to have confidence in the organizations and individuals with whom they interact online. They argue that improvements in identifying and authenticating users will build trust. They also maintain that the corporations depending on online activity have all the incentive they need to solve problems tied to trust. 2) Some say trust will grow stronger as users employ online activities more fully into their lives. They think this will be led by younger users who are fully immersed in online life.

We experience many reasons to distrust our interactions. ... And yet, on a personal basis, as time goes by, we are more and more trusting. Stephen Downes

Adrian Hope-Bailie, standards officer at Ripple, replied, "The technology advancements that are happening today are beginning to bring together disparate but related fields such as finance, identity, health care, education and politics. It's only a matter of time before some standards emerge that bind the ideas of identity and personal information with these verticals such that it becomes possible to share and exchange key information, as required, and with consent to facilitate much stronger trusted relationships between users and their service providers."

Stephen Downes, researcher at National Research Council Canada, wrote, "We experience many reasons to distrust our interactions. And traditional media are reporting numerous cases where they should be distrusted, so we think rising distrust is the norm. And yet, on a personal basis, as time goes by, we are more and more trusting. People who did not even know people in other countries, much less trust them, now travel halfway around the world to participate in conferences, rent and live in their homes, meet on a date, participate in events and more. Sure, things like catfishing are problems. But the exception is a problem only in the light of the trust that is the rule (Wittgenstein: A rule is shown by its exceptions). People who did not trust online retail a decade ago now purchase games, music and media on a regular basis (they're still a bit wary of deliveries from China, but they're coming around to it). People who did not trust online banking a decade ago now find it a much more convenient and inexpensive way to pay their bills. They also like the idea that their credit cards are now protected. People who were sceptical of online learning a decade ago now live in an era when, in some programs, some online learning is required, and where there is no real distinction (and no way to distinguish) between an online or offline degree (and meanwhile, millions of people flood in to take MOOCs). We can see where this trend is heading by looking at a few edge cases. For example: What would we say of a pilot who never trained in a simulator? What would we say of a lawyer who did not rely on data search, indexing and retrieval services? We trust them more in the future because they are taking advantage of advanced technology to support their work."

David Karger, professor of computer science at MIT, urges a "healthy distrust" and encourages the public be more vigilant in working to understand the risks and limitations of emerging technologies. "We've seen tremendous growth in use of these online tools," he wrote, "so it is natural to assume it will continue. Your specific question of trust is a complicated one. On the one hand, I believe we are just at the beginning of development of good online tools and I expect significant improvement - even over the next 10 years - that will draw more users to these better tools. On the flip side, I at least hope that people will become generally more educated about the risks and limitations of online interactions, which may lead to a certain healthy distrust even as usage becomes more widespread."

Subtheme: Improved technology plus regulatory and industry changes will help increase trust

Many technologists and futures thinkers among the respondents said they expect that constantly evolving improvements in the network of networks will maintain or boost trust; some also added that security cannot be completely perfected and staying ahead of the "darker forces" will require vigilance. Some suggested regulation. An anonymous respondent said, "Trust will be increased if governments put in place policies for consumer protection, data protection, etc."

We need to get serious about creating a truly secure internet if it is to realize the potential for empowering a big portion of the world. Richard Adler

Mike Roberts, Internet Hall of Fame member and first president and CEO of ICANN, wrote, "The designers, developers and users of computer-based systems are still in a primitive era. From an S curve perspective, we are hardly at the steep lower-left end. The rise of an entrepreneurial culture among developers has accelerated the diffusion of these systems but there is far to go. Because of the tangible benefits in convenience, quality, quantity, etc., of using such systems, humans will develop advanced techniques for protection from criminal behavior on the 'net,' but such activity will persist online as it does offline. You don't stop going to the grocery store because there was a carjacking incident last week, etc."

Richard Adler, distinguished fellow at the Institute for the Future, observed, "Technologies such as biometrics, encryption, digital IDs, blockchain and smart contracts are emerging that can enhance security and build trust. But they are in a race with darker forces who continue to become more effective in breaching security measures. We need to get serious about creating a truly secure internet if it is to realize the potential for empowering a big portion of the world."

Oscar Gandy, emeritus professor of communication at the University of Pennsylvania, commented, "Of course, as a privacy and surveillance scholar, my answer is more hopeful than analytical. I am hopeful that the public will become much more aware, and less 'resigned' to the fact that their transaction-generated information (TGI) is routinely used to shape their experience within economic, social and political markets/environments. These areas of impact are tightly interconnected, although some analytical assessments can determine differential influences for different population segments. I am most concerned about the nature and extent of surveillance and the strategic use of TGI in the public sphere, or in 'political and civic life.' Hopefully, the public will come to understand the myriad ways through which their TGI is used to shape the information environment in which they make important choices, including those we would identify as being political. What I have seen of late leads me to see the balance between benefits and harms in the political area to be largely negative, and worsening."

Hume Winzar, associate professor in business at Macquarie University in Australia, wrote, "Governments and financial companies want their systems secure and transparent, so they will work hard to make them so. This will relieve people's concerns. Also, many services will be simply unavailable except online, so people will have to trust them whether they're skeptical or not."

Subtheme: The younger generation and people whose lives rely on technology the most are the vanguard of those who most actively use it, and these groups will grow larger

Some respondents observed that familiarity breeds acceptance, thus those who are younger and have spent most of their lifetimes immersed in implementing online are those least likely to see trust issues as a reason to deny themselves the affordances of online life. One noted it will be "like the air we breathe."

The internet will be so ubiquitous that it will be like the air we breathe: Bad some days, good others, but not something we consciously interrogate anymore. Sam Anderson

Glenn Ricart, Internet Hall of Fame member and founder and chief technology officer of U.S. Ignite, said, "Trust will be strengthened over the next decade because there is a strong generational shift to interacting online. The expectation of Millennials and others is that they can and should be able to trust online transactions. That expectation will provide fuel to efforts improving trust."

David Durant, a business analyst for the UK Government Digital Service, wrote, "People who have grown up using mobile technology for social media, interaction with businesses and increasingly as a way to interact with government will see doing so as entirely normal and consider it the natural channel for a very significant proportion of all their life's interactions."

Sam Anderson, coordinator of instructional design at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, wrote, "The internet will be so ubiquitous that it will be like the air we breathe: Bad some days, good others, but not something we consciously interrogate anymore."

Theme 2: The nature of trust will be more fluid as technology embeds itself into human and organizational relationships

One striking line of argument, particularly among some of the most prominent analysts responding to this canvassing, is that trust will become a more conditional and contextual attribute of users' online behavior. They argue that trust is becoming "transactional" - an idea distinct from the notion that trust is a kind of property tied to an individual, group or organization. A number of respondents added that throughout human history the highest levels of trust are often found within personal networks, rather than via organizational actors.

Actually, trust will be both strengthened and diminished [in the coming decade], depending on context. danah boyd

Dan McGarry, media director at the Vanuatu Daily Post, wrote, "Trust will change in its nature. It will no longer be invested so much in systems and institutions as in individuals. Relationships will matter. On the negative side, much behaviour will be defined by allegiance, which will allow some actors to motivate significant numbers to act against their own interests at times. The human capacity to invest trust in others won't change unless we undergo significant evolutionary change."

Cory Doctorow, writer, computer science activist-in-residence at MIT Media Lab and co-owner of Boing Boing, responded, "The increased impoverishment/immiseration of larger and larger segments of society thanks to mounting wealth inequality will drive more reliance on informal networks, barter, sharing, etc., that will be enabled through online activity."

Subtheme: Trust will be dependent upon immediate context and applied differently in different circumstances

While many institutions have gained the public's trust over time, many are now being questioned. Some respondents say that individuals' influence has gained more importance in this atmosphere, and trust is - now and in the coming decade - more likely to be applied differently to different circumstances. An anonymous respondent replied, "The change will be in the dynamism of trust, not the valence. We will place small amounts of trust in people and organizations and exit or voice more quickly when we sense it has been violated."

danah boyd, founder of Data & Society, commented, "Actually, trust will be both strengthened and diminished [in the coming decade], depending on context. People will stop seeing it as 'the internet' and focus more on particular relationships. Increasingly, large swaths of the population in environments where tech is pervasive have no other model."

Aaron Chia Yuan Hung, assistant professor at Adelphi University, replied, "People will change what they trust. Just as people used to prefer an oral agreement over a signature in the past, people grow to accept what they can or are willing to trust. People are also likely to believe what they want to believe because confirmation bias is inherently human nature. Farhad Manjoo's 'True Enough ' is a wonderful read on this topic. It does make critical thinking more difficult, and education must play a big role in making sure people look at people, facts, data, etc., with a more analytic lens."

Subtheme: Trust is not binary or evenly distributed; there are different levels of it

Bob Frankston, internet pioneer and software innovator, commented, "The choices for the question are too limited. Trust is not binary. We need to have new forms of trust and Plan B's for when trust fails. This is where algorithms can help - as with credit card companies seeing patterns - but it cuts both ways."

Andrew Walls, managing vice president at Gartner, said, "Trust is not achieved merely through effective implementation of security processes and systems. Trust is a quality of a relationship between two entities. Trust is also both a conscious and unconscious attribute of a relationship. For example, many people state that they do not trust Facebook, yet the behavior of those same people demonstrates that they entrust Facebook with many details of their lives. It is possible to claim that these people do not understand the 'trust' ramifications and implications of their sharing behavior in social media, but that same claim can be made of every social interaction, online or otherwise. Rather than speak of trust as an absolute or binary situation (trusted or untrusted), trust must be viewed as a spectrum or continuum with multiple levels. For example, I might trust a bank with my money, but I do not trust them with the details of my social life, whereas, I won't trust my cousin with my money but will trust him/her with details of my social life. Trust is a subtle, dynamic attribute of social relationships between entities."

Theme 3: Trust will not grow, but technology usage will continue to rise, as a 'new normal' sets in

Are people "placing trust" in a technology when they use it or are they just willingly taking a chance in order to obtain or attain something they desire? A significant share of participants think it is the latter. They argued that the level of online activity by 2026 might make it appear as if the level of trust is fairly high, but the more appropriate way to interpret it will be that people are resigned to operating in an environment that does not allow them to be selective about whom they trust.

Trust will be strengthened, but it will be blind trust enforced by the ceaseless demands of The System, hell-bent to drive everyone online. Ebenezer Baldwin Bowles

Ebenezer Baldwin Bowles, founder of Corndancer.com, wrote, "Trust will be strengthened, but it will be blind trust enforced by the ceaseless demands of The System, hell-bent to drive everyone online. 'Resistance is futile,' the alien superpower said to the altruistic starship captain. Resistance to the interests of the corporate state will be futile if one wants to participate in the commonplace activities of household management and personal finances, or seek diagnosis and treatment from medical practitioners, or pass a bricks-and-mortar course in high school or university."

David Sarokin, author of "Missed Information: Better Information for Building a Wealthier, More Sustainable Future," wrote, "I'm not sure 'trust' is the right word here. It's more a matter of attrition and familiarity. As more and more activities migrate online, and as ever larger numbers of people simply grow up with the internet, it seems inevitable that its use will expand, both in terms of overall numbers of people using it [and] the types and scopes of activities available."

An anonymous research professor proclaimed, "Trust is dead now. Thus, it will stay the same: Dead."

An anonymous respondent wrote, "The general public trust in these systems will grow ... but the question of whether such trust will be deserved ... remains to be seen. Call it trust by default, in the same way we are powerless to criticize a surgeon's or airline pilot's technical maneuvers."

Subtheme: 'The trust train has left the station'; sacrifices tied to trust are a 'side effect of progress'

Some respondents argued that trust cannot be assumed to be an element of transactions, and many who used the word "trust" in saying they expect higher participation in online interaction may likely agree that their use of it was as a slightly inaccurate umbrella term used to match up with the language of the survey question and that it actually might signify they see a likely rise in people's participation, trusting or not.

An anonymous chief marketing officer commented, "The trust train has left the station, continues to gain speed, and shows very little chance of slowing down. As mobile payment technology proliferates, from our phones to our watches to our Internet of Things devices, and as digital natives continue to grow in their share of the world's economic power, concerns about trust in online interactions will seem antiquated and quaint. Breaches may continue and even proliferate, but the technologies will be so embedded in our lives that they will be considered a mere inconvenient side effect of progress."

Brad Templeton, chair for computing at Singularity University, wrote, "Trust will be strengthened even though that may be an unjustified trust. Our systems are today extremely insecure and we trust them, and those who are not using them are not staying away because of [a lack of] trust. Also, I think billions more will come online, not hundreds of millions. Biggest impacts will be in economic activity and cultural life."

Bart Knijnenburg, assistant professor in human-centered computing at Clemson University, responded, "Secure technologies will not do much to increase trust, because most people simply don't understand them. They will just run in the background."

Peter Levine, Lincoln Filene professor and associate dean for research at Tisch College of Civic Life, Tufts University, said, "I suspect that people will gain trust in electronic tools, per se, so that more people will be willing to bank, vote, shop, etc., online. But distrust in the underlying institutions continues to grow, and I am not particularly optimistic that it will change."

Subtheme: People often become attached to convenience and inured to risk

Convenience is one of the most-recognized features of all new technologies, including the internet. A number of respondents made the case that it is the convenience of using popular internet applications that makes the internet most appealing and addictive. Further, they noted that it is convenience that creates the most challenges for internet users when it comes to trust. In making trust decisions, people weigh risk and reward and generally choose reward.

Give me convenience or give me death. Anonymous respondent

An anonymous respondent adapted a classic line from U.S. history, writing:
"Give me convenience or give me death."

Tom Ryan, CEO of eLearn Institute Inc., replied, "'Trust' is neither the inhibitor nor driver for adoption of online interactions. Convenience will drive adoption. For example, motor vehicle deaths in the U.S. reached as high as 51,091 in 1980 and still remain over 30,000 deaths annually, yet the number of vehicles registered in the U.S. continues to grow. People accept the life-or-death consequences of driving for the convenience it provides. I recognize the threat that a hacker and some businesses may pose, through internet access, of my health and financial data, but the convenience and benefit I perceive keeps me online."

An anonymous respondent noted, "People will distrust more and more and still accept the use of these systems more and more."

An anonymous network architect at Vodafone noted, "For the reasons trust will be strengthened refer to Cory Doctorow's 'peak indifference' essay."

Louisa Heinrich, founder at Superhuman Limited, wrote, "I fear trust will be diminished (i.e., we will be certain we are being watched, that our communications and interactions are not secure) but we will use the technology anyway, either because we have no other choice or because it's just too convenient."

Subtheme: There will be no choice for users but to comply and hope for the best

Some respondents noted that there will be no alternative but to use online systems, whether they trust them or not - and many who use them will not necessarily do so because they "trust" them.

An anonymous respondent commented, "When compliance can be mechanically enforced at scale, trust is unnecessary."

Randy Bush, research fellow at Internet Initiative Japan and Internet Hall of Fame member, wrote, "Given that there will be less and less alternatives to electronic paths to daily transactions, people will have no choice but to 'trust' them. But they will remain nervous, with justification."

Naomi Baron, a linguistics professor at American University, replied, "To the extent that more and more people use the internet for these kinds of connectivity, logic suggests we conclude that trust in the system will be strengthened. However, I suspect that what in fact will be happening is that people will increasingly stop thinking about the trust issue, sensing they have no other option but the internet for conducting the business of daily life. Much as internet users today commonly believe they have no choice when it comes to giving up privacy, I predict users will feel the same way about trust."

Tony Pichotta, creative director at Recess Creative, replied, "Online interactions will be strengthened because of the lack of alternatives. Systemic technologies will shape the masses, leaving the dissenters out in the wilderness."

An anonymous researcher at the MIT Center for Civic Media said, "Trust is less relevant when there is no need to develop loyalty because there are no alternatives. We will use what we have available and mistrust it because there won't be obvious incentives for service providers to work in our favor. Worldwide, people will increasingly use cellphones and the internet to do work, shop, engage socially and learn. People will use these services because they have no choice, as the services will not be available offline as it's too expensive to maintain brick and mortar (something we are seeing in banking, retail and government services). And there will be few options because value is determined by the network effects leveraged by many companies."

Theme 4: Some say blockchain could help; some expect its value might be limited

One of the most interesting developments online in the past decade has been the rise of blockchain systems, which were first created to enable the use of the digital currency bitcoin. Blockchain product designer Collin Thompson describes blockchain as "a type of distributed ledger or decentralized database that keeps records of digital transactions. Rather than having a central administrator like a traditional database - think banks, governments and accountants - a distributed ledger has a network of replicated databases, synchronized via the internet and visible to anyone within the network." He elaborates on the blockchain process:

"When a digital transaction is carried out, it is grouped together in a cryptographically protected block with other transactions that have occurred in the last 10 minutes and sent out to the entire network .... The validated block of transactions is then timestamped and added to a chain in a linear, chronological order. New blocks of validated transactions are linked to older blocks, making a chain of blocks that show every transaction made in the history of that blockchain. The entire chain is continually updated so that every ledger in the network is the same, giving each member the ability to prove who owns what at any given time."

Such a dependable ledger could conceivably be used for securing any kind of transaction, and that has prompted advocates to argue that it could replace the kinds of activities now performed by trusted - and expensive - intermediaries such as banks, firms that validate real estate transactions, accounting operations and legal services.

Of course, this might powerfully affect the overall level of trust in online interactions, thus we asked respondents to consider in their written elaborations the impact of blockchains on trust in the next decade. A number were quite positive, but some expressed reservations about how rapidly and effectively blockchains would be adopted.

Strengthened trust is my hope, not a prediction. It is the great promise of blockchain of course, in combination with a host of other privacy and trust technologies, that it will make trusted peer-to-peer transactions possible. Marcel Bullinga

Susan Price, digital architect at Continuum Analytics, said, "Blockchain technologies hold the most promise for making such a trust system possible. Much will depend on the first few popular examples. Although blockchains so far remain robustly secure, systems that interface with and leverage them are subject to the same security problems we're familiar with (e.g., Ethereum's DAO recursive hack). Let's assume blockchain technologies and related will make such a trust system possible. Individuals could conduct secure trades with one another without the use of intermediaries, or with intermediaries operating at greatly reduced costs. More people worldwide could find sustaining outlets for their creativity and endeavors. The financial services industry will be revolutionized and reinvented. With little to no 'float' for exchanges of value, whole sectors such as clearinghouses will vanish. Citizens of countries where payments are most delayed today will enjoy faster settlement and thus their citizens enjoy less graft and corruption and benefit more directly from their productivity. Voting and civil rights will be completely transformed. It will be feasible for political structures to transcend geography. Though we'll still need local law enforcement and security forces, we could choose to become 'citizens' of organizations with specific goals, agendas and benefits that align with our needs and beliefs regardless of our current location or residence. This could speed human rights advances and productivity even more. Health care and advances in medical technology and solutions would evolve more quickly and be available to more people. This utopian view assumes that the identity interface remains outside the direct control of any corporation or government. Distributed control over such a system is vital to prevent abuses (or to recover from power plays or attacks)."

Marcel Bullinga, trend watcher and keynote speaker, wrote, "Strengthened trust is my hope, not a prediction. It is the great promise of blockchain of course, in combination with a host of other privacy and trust technologies, that it will make trusted peer-to-peer transactions possible. This is not in the interest of current technology companies and powerful platforms like Google, Facebook and Uber, so it will be heavily battled. Yet, it would revolutionize our economy into a true, trusted DIY world."

Lee McKnight, associate professor at Syracuse University's School of Information Studies, replied, "Trust can only be strengthened when people and systems actually have a reason to trust each other more. With bots attempting every 14 seconds to break into every large enterprise, it would be foolish to trust more. (In a decade we can only assume attacks will be even more frequent.) Still, in a re-architected information environment, properly designed systems, services, devices and networks supporting organizations with information-security awareness embedded in the organizational culture can do a much better job of distinguishing between that which they can trust and that which they do not know. Online transaction volumes will continue to grow, even as malicious insiders, bots, criminal gangs and nation-states also grow. Blockchain technology is an incredibly promising piece of a much bigger conundrum. Secure irrevocable ledgers are a great accounting mechanism without which the Internet of Things should not be trusted. But, as continued hacks of Bitcoin indicate, a secure ledger pointing to resources of value can also be used as a map to point out to thieves and bots where the money is."

Subtheme: There are reasons to think blockchain might not be as disruptive and important as advocates hope

Some respondents in this canvassing expressed doubts about the efficacy of blockchain.

Jerry Michalski, founder at REX, wrote, "Trust will grow, but not because organizations delivering services will be more trustworthy. Instead, systems will become more robust and we humans will become more acclimated to what they do. Our resistance will weaken. Our appetites will be whetted. Cybersecurity breakdowns do not seem to be hurting public confidence much. The blockchain may shift trust considerably, away from traditional institutions and out to the open ledger. But the blockchain is an act of faith as well, and may end up as flawed as previous platforms have been."

Gus Hosein, executive director at Privacy International, commented, "Oh, stop talking about blockchains - it's just the latest in the trend of 'tech X shall solve woe Alpha.' We have the knowledge and the capabilities with technologies that have been around for years but a lack of imagination and political understanding has inhibited useful dispersion."

Theme 5: The less-than-satisfying current situation will not change much in the next decade

About a quarter of respondents to this canvassing predicted that trust will stay about the same in the next decade. They generally see a persistent arms race between those trying to exploit the vulnerabilities of the internet - regularly shattering the trust of at least some users - and those trying to fight back. They see no end to cybersecurity problems.

Security measures and hacking are in an arms race. For every advance there will be setbacks. Charlie Firestone

Jason Hong, associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University, noted, "The main reason trust won't advance significantly in the near future is cybersecurity. Every single week there is news about some new massive data breach or malware attack. These kinds of cybersecurity problems rightfully erode people's trust in the internet, and they are only getting worse over time as script kiddies, criminals and state-sponsored hackers get more sophisticated."

Charlie Firestone, communications and society program executive director and vice president at The Aspen Institute, wrote, "Security measures and hacking are in an arms race. For every advance there will be setbacks. I expect the balance to remain about where it is, with peaks and valleys as the race continues. With trust, people will increase use of online media for transactions. Blockchain technology is a net plus in this ongoing saga."

K.G. Schneider, a higher-education administrator, wrote, "We will see the same cycles of increasing trust followed by breaches followed by new technologies."

Ian Peter, an internet pioneer and historian based in Australia, wrote, "Trust is currently rather low and I expect it to stay that way, while, paradoxically, usage is likely to rise dramatically. Despite their mistrust, people are likely to give more weight to the convenience of online transactions than they to do the risks involved."

Theme 6: Trust will diminish because the internet is not secure and powerful forces threaten individuals' rights

A number of the most highly respected experts, many of whom preferred to remain anonymous in answering, were among the quarter of respondents who said they expect trust will actually diminish over the next decade. They listed various reasons, but those cited most often were: 1) Corporate business models are tuned to profit-making and government motivations tend toward national security, leaving little attention paid to individuals' rights to personal privacy and personal security protections. 2) The internet was not created with trust-building in mind, and criminal exploits and other manipulative gaming of networks by political and social actors are expected to rise, possibly exponentially, in the future.

Technology is far outpacing security, privacy and reliability. The problem will intensify with the Internet of Things, as the internet connects more machines in the physical world. Marc Rotenberg

Vinton Cerf, vice president and chief internet evangelist at Google, co-inventor of the Internet Protocol and Internet Hall of Fame member, noted, "Trust is rapidly leaking out of the internet environment. Unless we strengthen the ability of content and service suppliers to protect users and their information, trust will continue to erode. Strong authentication to counter hijacking of accounts is vital."

Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, commented, "Technology is far outpacing security, privacy and reliability. The problem will intensify with the Internet of Things, as the internet connects more machines in the physical world."

Richard Stallman, president of the Free Software Foundation and Internet Hall of Fame member, wrote, "I expect people will learn to distrust online commerce more, as they see servers will be cracked and their personal information will become available to bad actors (both criminals and states)."

Subtheme: Corporate and government interests are not motivated to improve trust or protect the public

Henning Schulzrinne, a professor at Columbia University and Internet Hall of Fame member, wrote, "Under the current system, almost all the risks of breaches are borne by individuals, particularly in terms of time and effort of fixing problems. Data once leaked cannot be un-leaked. I'm assuming that the current sorry state of system security will persist, with buggy IoT [Internet of Things] software, slow upgrades of Android and websites that are still subject to SQL injection and other common programming problems. Currently, blockchain systems do not seem to address any real problems, except if you are in the business of distributing ransomware."

Jim Warren, longtime technology entrepreneur and activist, responded, "As much as I use, enjoy and am mostly an enthusiastic user of online interactions, sadly, I have to say that it is becoming more and more difficult to do many of them in a reliably secure fashion. Assuring that such interactions are surely reliable and secure is not easy, and perhaps impossible. It certainly doesn't help when governments do everything possible to make sure that such activities - notably some 'types' of communications - are difficult or impossible. No matter how much it might - and often might not - help governments protect their citizens (or too often much more important to them, protect themselves and those who govern)."

Dave Burstein, editor at Fast Net News, observed, "Surveillance is the biggest obstacle to trust. It will increase as countries other than the U.S. deploy the tools. Multinationals like Facebook and Google/Doubleclick will become even more effective at tracking, and they will be ubiquitous."

An anonymous professor of digital media at an Australian university wrote, "The internet will be a less open and diverse environment in the next decade. Facebook will be as likely to control [the internet] as a distributed system like blockchain."

An anonymous systems engineer observed, "Corporate greed prevents things from being done well/secure."

Alf Rehn, professor and chair of management and organization at Åbo Akademi University in Finland, said, "Call it the iron law of internet trust - with more engagement comes more chances of glitches and hacks, which means that intelligent distrust will be a civic skill just like media literacy."

An anonymous freelance consultant commented, "Trust will be strengthened if and only if the door is opened to effective, open-source security and corporate and government liability for security negligence. Current trends are the opposite, making security research illegal with the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) and other trade deals, DRM (Digital Rights Management), etc. Transparency is necessary. We've known for centuries that markets are only effective when there is trust backed up by rule of law. When laws prevent effective security, we destroy trust and thus destroy markets. We're on the wrong path."

An anonymous programmer and data analyst said, "Corporations grant us access to technology and services in order to increase revenue. This will not change, as the basic infrastructure of the internet is not amenable to privacy and security. Instead we've seen a series of patchwork solutions that ultimately always fail or are subverted. Without a total rebuild of the internet itself this will not change, therefore, trust is an illusion."

An anonymous respondent said, "The internet is a security [farce]. Everyone knows that. The NSA [U.S. National Security Agency] is logging this right now. I'm sure three Russian mobs already have all my passwords."

Some respondents predict the public's dismay and distrust could lead to "rebellion." An anonymous senior software engineer at Microsoft said, "We will trust the experiences less as the larger structures (corporate, government) try to remain in control, yet we will become more dependent on them than ever through the pervasiveness (i.e., online micropayments) and lure (i.e., virtual reality). It will be a phase of a love-hate relationship which could cause rebellion against the system."

Subtheme: Criminal exploits will diminish trust

While some optimistic respondents whose remarks are included in earlier segments of this report believe that technological solutions will upgrade trust by 2026, many of these respondents have no faith in rescue by tech. An anonymous computer scientist commented, "We are now paying the 'technical debt' for an internet that lacks essential facilities for security (e.g., association control). The 'attack surface' is growing faster than our ability to protect it; complexity is growing due to shoddy science and poor programming. There is no magic solution in tech itself; it is a process and culture change, rather like how financial services regulation has matured in response to past crises."

It just appears that anyone and anything can be hacked and likely will be eventually. It's hard to figure out how to put that trust back in the bottle. Jan Schaffer

Raymond Plzak, former CEO of a major regional internet governance organization, commented, "Trust will be diminished. It is eroding now. There are too many instances of abuse and misuse today."

Jan Schaffer, executive director at J-Lab, replied, "It just appears that anyone and anything can be hacked and likely will be eventually. It's hard to figure out how to put that trust back in the bottle."

An anonymous project manager said, "Online security is a complex problem that depends on human behavior to function. With so much infrastructure moving online and a lack of focus on re-engineering our systems with security and privacy at their heart, a string of high-profile failures will taint these new technologies for years to come."

Another anonymous respondent wrote, "The dystopian, tiered future of science fiction is going to be considered a quaint underestimation. There will be a hated elite of genuinely computer-literate people who will be relied upon to maintain the oligarchical power structure we have now.

A third anonymous respondent observed, "The intrusion of networked computing into many new areas, such as digitally networking hospitals for diagnostic imaging, self-driving cars, creates the potential for a startling security threat that could cause widespread chaos. This is not a new idea. Clifford Stoll's book ' The Cuckoo's Egg ' (1989) pointed out that the hackers infiltrating his Unix system could just as well have been infiltrating the operating system of a gamma camera or other clinical system. We know that many governments are putting efforts into cyberwarfare. This offers another avenue for disaster."

An anonymous sociologist at the Social Media Research Foundation commented, "Weaponized information systems will corrode the credibility of these systems. Once faith in the validity of network-delivered data is eroded, the entire superstructure of the network will collapse. If stock prices, weather reports and news articles are clearly seen to be manipulated and fraudulent, how will the means of communication survive?"

An anonymous respondent replied, "We create these processes with reactive technologies, not proactive, so the hackers will constantly be one step ahead. I don't see trust strengthening, or us winning on this one. Blockchain systems will hopefully help, but I firmly believe humans can outwit anything we come up with."

Beyond the major themes: Some broader explorations of trust

Beyond those pointed themes, some respondents wrote answers that looked at the grand sweep of the trust problem and how it will evolve.

The answer of Susan Price, digital architect at Continuum Analytics, had that tone and offered a solution: "The paradox is that in order for individuals to realize the incredible potential of technology, we must each uniquely self-identify. Doing so involves great risk. Individuals routinely surrender their rights and commit to legal agreements without studying or understanding the risks and value changing hands. What's needed is a system (a human application programming interface, or API) that gives individuals appropriate control over their online activities and the data that most closely concerns them. Corporations and governments could 'opt in' to support such a system, but must not be the primary creators or maintainers of it. Unless such a system is created and popularized, trust in online systems overall will diminish because governments will continue to violate citizens' privacy, hackers and thieves will thrive, and corporations will shift more and more of the burdens onto consumers. If an appropriate system emerges and everyone plays by the same rules, trust would ensue."

One anonymous respondent devised a human solution to the trust problem - one that might also have the virtue of creating a new category of jobs: "People will not have a choice. Online/automated/precast dealings will be involuntary. One possible new future 'job' role: Personal Interactive Consultant (PIC). Someone who specializes in knowing you and your family in order to more effectively interface with companies/corporations/government. Kind of like we used to use travel agents and insurance brokers, and even lawyers, the PIC works as our advocate in order to get something done within an industry or institution that would otherwise be beyond the average person's ability or convenience level. The PIC probably would not be able to handle all interactions; the PIC would likely be a hired face for a large company with specialized resources to handle all types of inquiries and interactions. Let's call it a Lifestyle Information Management company (LIM). There already are PICs today, but on a smaller scale. And maybe LIMs already exist in some rudimentary form."

Another such sweeping answer came from an anonymous institute director who wrote, "All areas of life will be changed dramatically by data-driven algorithmic cognition and decision-making. The network will break down traditional social domains, such as business, politics, health care, education, science, etc. Networks cut across these domains and make them increasingly inefficient. There is no smart city without smart education, science, healthcare, business, etc. And smartness comes from integration of all data sources and networked infrastructures. Whether positive or negative is a pointless question. Who is to judge? According to what criteria? If you had asked the ancient Greeks whether the Roman Empire was positive or negative, would the question have made any sense? ... The network norms of connectivity, flow, communication, participation, transparency, authenticity and flexibility will influence how society changes."

And a final thought along these lines was offered by Tse-Sung Wu, a project portfolio manager at Genentech, who said, "As long as access to and innovation in the internet and related devices remains relatively unfettered, it is likely more and more interactions will be mediated by these devices. All kinds of commerce, the provision of services and goods, health care, the sharing of ideas, teaching, leisure/entertainment, etc. Where it will break down is when we try to replicate a face-to-face interaction online but underestimate the breadth and depth of the face-to-face interaction. Technology is inherently reductionist, and we have many examples where this has failed us, or worse, it has failed us but we don't notice it till too late. Environmental crises are a perfect example: Technology mediates our relationship with the natural world, leading us to underestimate its value to our way of life. We have now evolved into a relationship with the natural world that is unsustainable, and this happened in part because technology has numbed us to signals that otherwise would have informed us to act differently. Online technology, insofar as it permeates all the spheres of human interaction, will likely do the same. The creation of online communities where people still feel lonely; the illusion of choice of the many potential dating/life partners, yet people stay single: Many such contradictions will continue to abound because of reductionist, incomplete understanding of human interactions that form the basis of the technologies intended to replace them."

Responses from additional key experts regarding the future of trust in online activities

This section features responses by several of the many top analysts who participated in this canvassing. Following this wide-ranging set of comments, a much more expansive set of quotations directly tied to the six primary themes identified in this report begins on Page 34.

Distributed privacy, defensive agents and personal control can build trust

Jamais Cascio, distinguished fellow at the Institute for the Future, observed, "The strengthening of trust is contingent upon the lack of a big 'asteroid-impact' event, and assumes that the dynamics currently at play (tension between crime and law enforcement, surveillance and privacy, etc.) continue. Blockchain and similar technologies will help drive this increased trust, but not simply because of broader use of encryption. Blockchain, etc., will make possible truly novel approaches to banking, shopping, learning and nearly every other kind of online interaction. Distributed privacy, defensive personal software agents, and increased individual control over personal information will create new playing fields of transactions. Big corporations will leap at those fields, but won't be able to totally control them. The analogy here is the use of mobile phone minutes as a pseudo-currency in Africa, which started as a bottom-up, ad-hoc phenomenon. Formalization as mPesa and similar programs streamlined the process, but in this scenario ultimate control over the uses of the minute/currency would still rest in the hands of the users."

As data breaches rise, device use continues unabated due to convenience

Amy Webb, futurist and CEO at the Future Today Institute, observed, "Our trust in our devices tends to stay constant until a catastrophic event - like our accounts being hacked, or a national news story about surveillance, or our devices being stolen. And even then, our concern lasts only as long as we're dealing with the immediate consequences, such as having to change our passwords or canceling our credit cards. Paradoxically, in the past decade we have seen a dramatic increase in data breaches, and yet we continue to entrust our devices with our fingerprints, our faces, our heart rates, our exact locations and more - in addition to our credit card numbers and bank accounts. We willingly put our trust in our devices and digital networks when the benefits of convenience outweigh our fears about privacy. Over time, as our codependent relationship with our devices becomes more acute, the very notion of privacy, and indeed its importance, begins to erode. Those areas of life that will ask for more and more of our personal data include health care, state and national government, travel, commerce, and of course, personal communications - technology companies and social networks. We will put up a fight unless the benefits are immediately understandable and daily life is little bit better for the exchange. This is why we hear people grumble about Facebook and Google's privacy policies, and we continue to use both - because they've become indispensable part of our lives. The fact that the government has access to similar personal data - in fact, some would argue it's less than what we're sharing with tech companies - continually enrages us. Why? Because we're not distracted by immediate, tangible benefits in exchange for our data."

'Social machine natives will trust their ubiquitously connected environment'

Jim Hendler, a professor of computer science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, replied, "The issue isn't areas of application, but the socio-technical issue of the trust of users in the technology. Given that young children now increasingly have access to smartphones and computing, that access is becoming more ubiquitous, and that the use of these is increasing in all population sectors, it is clear that the generation growing up as 'social machine natives' (like digital natives, but more embedded in the social fabric) will age without the distrust their grandparents and parents may have had. Technologies like blockchain, etc., are enablers, but much as modern drivers have more trust in their vehicles without knowing how the engines function, social machine natives will trust their ubiquitously connected environment without needing to know the implementation details."

People will trust less when they learn more about the nature of the tech they use

John Markoff, retired senior writer at The New York Times, commented, "Inevitably as people learn more about the nature of the technology they are using their trust will decline."

Maybe a little reduction in trust could be healthy

Jonathan Grudin, principal researcher at Microsoft, commented, "This question should be prefaced by asking, 'Do people today trust in online interactions too much, too little or just the right amount?' Mass media stories make it clear that many people trust online media too much and come to regret it. A little reduction in trust could be healthy. The other questions are: Will online media become more trustworthy? Will most people become better at assessing when to trust it? It could become more trustworthy, but I won't hold my breath. I think people will become somewhat better at assessing trustworthiness."

A vast loss of agency accompanies the gain of convenience, a trade-off with limits

Doc Searls, journalist, speaker, and director of Project VRM at Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, wrote:

"Phones are already extensions of our hands and minds. Yet they are also only a nine-year-old technology (dating from the advent of apps, in the summer of 2007), and dominated by handheld units that tend to be replaced by their owners about every 18 months. Meanwhile, the services behind many of the most-used apps are becoming more intelligent, complex and opaque about the full extent of what they are up to. We tend not to see these services' involvements with surveillance, manipulative algorithms, artificial intelligence and collaborations with parties unknown. For the most part this seems benign, but on the whole it masks a loss of agency behind a gain of convenience.

"At some point, however, this trade-off - which is one we never consciously made - will reach limits. It isn't clear yet what those will be, but the Faustian nature of this non-bargain will surely become manifest. This is when trust will break down. In fact it already has in the regulatory sphere. The abuses of surveillance capitalism (the term coined by Shoshana Zuboff of Harvard Business School) are well-known and highly irksome to lawmakers and regulators, especially in Europe. This is why, for example, we now have the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the EU. Expect this single law to radically alter the way online businesses treat users and customers, and personal data gathered from them. The anticipated arrival of the GDPR's full regulatory might in 2018 (with severe penalties for noncompliance) is already altering the way many big businesses approach personal data. In the words of one executive (who works for one of those big companies and asks to stay unnamed), personal data is quickly becoming a 'toxic asset.' He also calls surreptitiously gathered personal data the 'radon gas' of business, and 'a silent killer.'

"But the most important moves will not be made by big business. Instead they'll be made by independent individuals and smaller businesses that need to interact in a fully trusting way, where exposure to risks and bad acting are minimized by point-to-point and end-to-end conversations, transactions and relationships. There will also be a rise in conditional sharing of personal information on a need-to-know basis, and on terms set by individuals as well. Some of these terms will be sourced in neutral and trusted dot-orgs such as Customer Commons, which will do for personal terms what Creative Commons did for personal copyright.

"Also, expect a distinction to appear between sovereign personal identity - the kind given to people by their parents at birth and fully controlled by the individual - and administrative identifiers. Identity in the future will be anchored in the former rather than the latter. So will control over how we are known by others. Imagine, for example, getting married and changing your last name. You should be able to change administrative records of your last name at all the government and commercial entities with which you have a relationship in one move. That is only possible when you are in full control of your own sovereign-source identity and the means by which others know it, and can trust your authority over it. Expect to see this change in the way identity works come to pass over the next few years. Also expect to see distributed ledgers (e.g., blockchain) involved."

Rather than feed on fears, promote what could go right - we can figure it out

Jeff Jarvis, a professor at the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism, said, "To believe that our trust in technology will be diminished is to believe that we are powerless against it - and I do not believe that. We have many tools at hand to govern our own use of technology - norms, laws, regulation, the market - and we are using them. Sadly, media do not help with this process by usually donning dystopian glasses, asking what could go wrong with any technology rather than also exploring what could go right. Moral panic - #technopanic - often ensues. Also, whole markets of new companies pop up to feed on these fears. And, especially in Europe, industries and institutions that are challenged by the change technology brings resort to political pressure, regulation and legislation as protectionism. So it is important for the technologists to do a better job of acknowledging and addressing what could go wrong and of exploring and promoting what could go right. It is important for other institutions - government, media, education - to help explore the opportunities, if for no other reason than to remain competitive in the world. We're smart. We'll figure it out. We always have, eventually."

Setting appropriate choices in engineering the technology can improve outcomes

Fred Baker, fellow at Cisco Systems and longtime Internet Engineering Task Force leader, wrote, "Fundamentally, I don't think the average individual understands the communication media they use, whether it is a postal envelope, the dial on a rotary phone, Morse code or the many different kinds of communication that use the internet. They trust them implicitly, until they are given a reason not to, or they don't trust them. If anything, that's why we have to limit their choices, such as by forcing the use of https over http, or the use of TLS in SMTP, or other places. It helps them make better choices. Where that breaks down is when trust is clearly violated. In my father's era, General/President Eisenhower had to tell people to beware the military/industrial complex, and Washington had to tell citizens to 'beware foreign entanglements.' Governments have grossly failed us in the past 50 years, leading UK people to distrust the EU, U.S. people to distrust NSA and FBI, and so on. That hopefully forces people to use the media more wisely, but I don't believe that they do."

People's trust in online interactions are now and will continue to be unconscious

Barry Chudakov, founder and principal at Sertain Research and StreamFuzion Corp., replied, "While database hacking and identity theft will continue to bedevil users and make headlines, for most of us, convenience and immediacy will continue to far outweigh trust in our online interactions over the next decade. Today the default position of virtually every business is to move online. Try calling an insurance company or an airline to ask a quick question: The queue has moved from outside the store to the 888 number. Online is the new landline .... While some may grumble about the impersonal nature of online interactions, most people have little choice but to trust the online experience. If you don't want to physically visit and buy from a brick and mortar store, what else is there? Most people will say or think: The decision has been made and I wasn't part of the decision-making.

"As a result, people's trust in online interactions will be implicit, unconscious. It is now, and will continue to be, like driving a car on roads where accidents happen regularly. You need to go somewhere so you get in the car, despite traffic and road construction and obstacles and even the danger of accidents. This doesn't mean you won't at some point complain about highway congestion; likewise, people will continue to both like the ease of online interactions yet grumble about security, identity chasing and tracking as they conduct more business than ever in cyberspace.

"There is no area of life that won't be affected. Economics, health, education, politics, culture - all are changed by the interaction of devices and the Internet. This is because as people use cellphones and the Internet we have tangibly altered reality .... The impacts are and will continue to be both positive and negative; this is because the impacts are revolutionary and, again, cannot be contained by binary formulations. This new reality changes our behaviors and especially how we see others and ourselves. Cellphones, smart devices, are now instruments of documentation, and in this measure, are tools of validation. I text, therefore I am. I am here. This is what I saw. I am alive. I am dressed (or undressed) a certain way .... The act of showing the act may now be more important than the act itself. This is not inconsequential: Crimes that might have gotten a slap on the wrist now send athletes and others to jail or into retirement because a cellphone captured their questionable (or criminal) behaviors. Citizen journalists who witness a disturbance, a shooting, an accident, especially with political overtones, are now not only adjuncts to the news - they are the news. They are bringing us first-hand reports that are raw, unfiltered and often devoid of context. Yet, the immediacy of these reports - the lack of filter, and often the lack of vetting - is both thrilling and disturbing.

"We have to construct protocols to respond to this new phenomenon that is changing our sense of reality .... Our identity is portable and, with some effort, able to be manipulated, stolen, recast, taken from us. Ask anyone who's had an episode of identity theft how weird it is to plead with authorities to recognize you - as you. The result is that recognition technologies, already gaining sophistication (face recognition, voice recognition, emotion recognition) will increasingly be used to validate what we once thought was obvious and we took for granted: our ability to be ourselves, to be who we are."

Resigned and uncomfortable, the public has no other realistic option

Susan Etlinger, industry analyst at Altimeter Group, wrote, "In the early days of the internet when there were no precedents for 'e' business, venture capitalists funded business models they understood. Of course, the prevailing model in those days was advertising: eyeballs, clicks and any measure of 'engagement' that would prove that organizations were earning their customers' attention. This has made consumer data the dominant currency of the internet. But while we've become good at earning attention, we haven't done so well at earning trust. Study after study reiterates that consumers are uneasy with the ways organizations collect and use their data. They feel resigned and uncomfortable, but they have no other realistic option. They may do a 'digital detox' for a few days, but not too many people are trying to live off the grid. So there is a tremendous opportunity to realign two seemingly conflicting imperatives: the imperative to innovate and perform, and the imperative to sustain long-term, trusted relationships with customers and consumers. I think we can do both, but it's going to get worse before it gets better. Organizations are going to see a continued flight from open platforms to closed ones like Snapchat, WeChat and other messaging apps, and they're going to have to prove that they're trusted actors in order to woo customers back to the open web."

There should be expanded 'public defenders' for online systems

Ben Shneiderman, professor of computer science at the University of Maryland, commented, "Trust is essential to success of online systems. Clearly identified responsible parties should be available to answer user questions, deal with errors/failures, and promote continuous improvement. Public presentations of the number of fraudulent translations, criminal attacks, malicious uses, etc., should be available, just as police crime data or airline delays are public. The ombudsman idea, Better Business Bureau and public defenders need to be expanded for online systems."

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The Fate of Online Trust in the Next Decade

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Many experts say lack of trust will not be a barrier to increased public reliance on the internet. Those who are hopeful that trust will grow expect technical and regulatory change will combat users' concerns about security and privacy.

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How the three main parties during the 2010 General Election campaign utilised 'new' media to influence voters.

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Gaby Hinsliff

The phrase is fast becoming the most overused cliche of the 2010 election, yet it all starts from a misunderstanding.

When the pollster Deborah Mattinson predicted a " Mumsnet election", endless speculation about middle-class mothers' voting plans followed. But what really interested her was the way the parenting website is changing political debate. Mumsnet's infamous webchats force politicians to address parents as equals, on issues of Mumsnetters' choosing: with other social media it has, Mattinson thinks, given ordinary women the confidence to challenge politicians in new ways. What interests her is how the internet shapes the battleground for female votes.

So after a week in which Labour's crowdsourced poster campaign backfired and Alastair Campbell had to ask what "fisking" a blog meant, how well do political parties understand new media technology? Are they using it, or is it using them?

All three mainstream parties are adopting similar techniques, but with very different aims. For the Tories, the main challenge is to persuade nervous floating voters. They want to employ social media to "normalise" the idea of voting Conservative and reduce any stigma by showing that people who seem like you back David Cameron.

For Labour, it's all about motivating existing support: it uses social media to organise activists, build camaraderie, and bash the opposition. The Liberal Dems' priority is being heard over the din of larger parties, but because online campaigning can be cheaper than old-fashioned billboard wars, it now also seeks to punch above its weight online.

All three are using new media to tackle lingering disgust at the expenses scandal, which encouraged voters to switch off from conventional electioneering. Politicians now seek to reach voters in novel ways, wherever they can be found. For 23 million Britons that's on Facebook, with around half logging in on any given day.

Social media matters precisely because it is social, creating networks and building intimacy between strangers quickly - even if some of them are politicians. We trust Facebook friends, or other mothers on Mumsnet in a way we no longer trust authority figures: political messages acquired thirdhand from them may carry more weight than those received firsthand from a politician.

But spreading political messages virally like this requires something different from a conventional campaign. Politics tends towards the weighty and earnest, yet people usually share emails that make them laugh. The Lib Dems' witty spoof site Labservative.com, a parody of a blended Labour/Conservative party, got twice as many YouTube plays as Samantha Cameron's video debut simply because it's funny.

The online war isn't only fought via social media, however. Online advertising means parties can measure in real time which slogans attract most voters. Another key weapon is the humble email. Far more people have email than Twitter accounts - which is why Barack Obama's campaign concentrated on garnering supporters' addresses. The trick then is getting people actually to read political emails, by matching intelligence from doorstep canvassing to names on email lists and tailoring messages accordingly. Another basic weapon is search: online content only helps if voters can find it. The Tories have invested heavily in pushing themselves up search rankings.

But the big question is not how politicians manipulate the web: it's how the web shapes their relationship with voters. The online culture of challenge and rebuttal, with instant feedback on blogs or in webchats, demands honesty and willingness to engage with arguments rather than the stonewalling common on TV. Being online also means politicians accepting they no longer control the message: it may be spoofed, hacked, mashed up and disrupted - albeit sometimes to their advantage, creating memorable content.

Nonetheless, parties should remember new media has its limits. It's a medium, not a message - it can't compensate for flawed policy - and a relatively niche one: 4,000 people follow Gordon Brown on Facebook, yet four million saw his ITV interview with Piers Morgan. The demographic group most likely actually to vote, pensioners, doesn't hang out on YouTube.

Once the novelty of politicians in virtual life passes, social media users may return to ignoring them. Perhaps the challenge for politicians online remains the same as in the days of soapbox and megaphone: just being heard.

Online advertising

LABOUR: On a tight budget, Labour has made the most of cheaper online rates. It has placed adverts on Facebook suggesting SureStart children's centres are under threat if the Tories win, targeting users with preschool children; it advertised on Mumsnet highlighting Conservative plans to restrict child tax credit for the middle classes. It is also using viral ads such as its "David Cameron/David Camera Off" campaign portraying the Tory leader as two-faced, which was posted online and spread by supporters to their social networks via email.

CONSERVATIVE: Also using online ads to target niche audiences, the party was the first to advertise on Mumsnet, also placing ads about the national insurance cut on singles website match.com after a staff member who used it for online dating realised that because users add their salary bracket to profiles, ads could be aimed at those worst hit by the tax. The party will advertise on consumer and specialist websites during the election.

LIB DEM: Boldest in experimenting with viral ads such as spoof site labservative.com, which mocks both other parties as indistinguishable, boring and arrogant (catchline: "Number 10 is where we belong. Besides, all our stuff's there"). The site, which morphs Brown into Cameron, pictured far right, got 11,000 hits on YouTube shortly after launching - and unlike standard ads is hard for its rivals to parody or spoof. Its straight online ads have tended to be positive rather than attacking and focus on core issues such as tax cuts.

OTHERS: The website MyDavidCameron, which helps the public generate "spoof" versions of party ads, has been the surprise hit of the campaign so far. Set up by a left-leaning graphic designer but independent of Labour, it generated slogans based on the Tories' "We can't go on like this"poster, pictured above, which were often more memorable than the originals. The Labour party quickly adopted its template. Mumsnet members were particularly prolific spoofers.

Web and email

LABOUR: The party's website has been made more open to the public, for example hosting last week's dossier on Conservative credibility that would once have only gone to journalists or members. But it also hosts a password-only section for party members, who can access campaign materials and details of events. Officials credit it with helping them hit 100,000 conversations with voters a week, triple the rate in 2005. Email addresses are harvested via petitions on issues from climate change to foxhunting.

CONSERVATIVE: The party's website has been revamped to appeal to floating voters rather than party activists (many of whom now get their news from Tory blogs), with expanded sections on policy designed for people new to voting Conservative. Candidates are encouraged to collect thousands of email addresses from potential supporters which are used to tie all other new media campaigning together, promoting the party's Facebook page or video material.

LIB DEM: Website has been redesigned to focus on Nick Clegg's six policy priority areas: education, economy, transport, environment, health and law and order. The party has its own version of sharing software, LibDig, allowing party members to swap interesting material found online: and it's relying heavily on email as a cheap and effective form of communication. The Lib Dems have only three full-time new media specialists - Labour has a team of five and the Tories nine.

OTHERS: Grassroots websites Conservativehome, LabourList and LibDemVoice are independent of their parties but closely linked. They will act as a filter for activists on daily news, bringing together highlights and reflecting grassroots views of the campaign. But their biggest role may be after the election: with leadership challenges likely for either Brown or Cameron if they lose, these sites will be critical in reflecting opinion about future direction. The other big players will be the most influential bloggers, including Iain Dale, Tim Montgomerie, Guido Fawkes, Labour MP Tom Harris and the Lib Dems' Mark Pack.

Twitter, Facebook and social media

LABOUR: Arguably dominant on Twitter: five of the 10 most influential political tweeters (as calculated by non-partisan monitoring site @Tweetminster) are Labour, though that may reflect liberal-left bias on the site. The ones to watch are Sarah Brown, who posted snapshots of the campaign launch via Twitter; Kerry McCarthy, Labour's Twitter "tsar"; and Ed Balls, the cabinet's most prolific tweeter. John Prescott helped pioneer campaigning via Facebook and the party has wooed middle-class parents via website Mumsnet.

CONSERVATIVE: Nearly 30,000 are signed up to its party Facebook page, about three times as many as Labour. During the European elections it "hijacked" the Facebook status of willing Tory supporters to spread party messaging. It uses the site less for campaigning and more as a "soft" introduction to Toryism. Cameron has done three Mumsnet webchats and rumour has it newly pregnant Samantha backed out of one only at the last minute. Bloggers Tim Montgomerie and Iain Dale are key Tory voices on Twitter.

LIB DEM: Boasts the only tweeting party leader in Nick Clegg (who apparently really does do most of it himself), and is now using Facebook to encourage members to set up events around the leaders' debates. MPs Jo Swinson and Alistair Carmichael were early Facebook adopters, using it to campaign, and a recent poll of Facebook users found Lib Dem candidates and official figures had more fans than Labour candidates. The party runs its own social media site, Act, aimed at party activists but open to the wider public.

OTHERS: The anonymous hacker who hijacked the Tories' cash-gordon.com website and turned it into a porn site is a reminder of how social media can go wrong. More benign was publisher Scott Pack's #welovethenhs campaign on Twitter (triggered by Conservative MEP Dan Hannan's disparaging comments about British healthcare), promptly hijacked by Labour. Other campaign groups using Facebook to galvanise support and lobby mainstream parties include the so-called Robin Hood campaign for a Tobin tax on bank transactions.

LABOUR: Gordon Brown's early podcasts were a YouTube phenomenon for all the wrong reasons, although No 10's output has improved. But video briefings by Peter Mandelson, Douglas Alexander and others will be a regular feature of the campaign: there will also be behind-the-scenes films of ordinary campaign workers, echoing those produced by the Obama campaign. Sarah Brown recorded a video clip saying that her Twitter feed would remain about her rather than party politics during the election in an apparent rebuff to Samantha Cameron's recent PR blitz.

CONSERVATIVE: The Tories see video as playing to Cameron's strengths as a telegenic politician: Webcameron (home movie-style shots of the leader washing up in his kitchen) will follow him on the campaign trail; candid backstage clips and films from inside the war room will also feature (party chairman Eric Pickles's films from last year's local elections were surprise hits). Sam Cam's debut on Webcameron earlier this month got more than 4,600 views in its first two days on YouTube and is unlikely to be her last. Videos are regularly embedded in email.

LIB DEM: Nick Clegg will shoot a daily video diary during the campaign; party president Ros Scott will also produce a campaign diary partly based on video. A video blitz is expected now the election is called. Watch also for video footage of Vince Cable: a clip of him accusing Gordon Brown of turning from Stalin into Mr Bean got nine times as many YouTube plays as Clegg's last party conference speech.

OTHERS: Undercover film shot by bloggers or campaign groups and uploaded onto YouTube could produce sparks this election: Don't Panic, the pressure group which secretly filmed a BNP meeting and Alan Duncan claiming MPs had to live on "rations", have shown what can be done on a shoestring. GuyTV, blogger Guido Fawkes's film spinoff, is also one to watch. And will a member of the public catch anything incriminating on a cameraphone out on the campaign trail?

Campaign tools

LABOUR: Its trump card is its ContactCreator software: intelligence from doorstep conversations with voters is fed into a national database. This data is then cross-checked against lists traditionally used in marketing, including information from its Mosaic system which divides people into specific types such as Terraced Melting Pot (multicultural neighbourhoods). It also has a virtual phone bank allowing members to canvass potential supporters from home. The #mobmonday campaign on Twitter asks members to give up two hours every Monday to call voters in different marginal seats.

CONSERVATIVE: Launched MyConservatives.com, a virtual phone bank, crucially you don't have to be a party member to join, allowing people a taste of political activity to lure them into becoming full members (although risking mischief-making by rival activists). Its version of ContactCreator is developed under the guidance of key seats organiser Lord Ashcroft, which logs voters' concerns and electoral intentions and can then be cross-referenced to email lists and other data - although there have been reports of glitches. The Tories' candidate for Hammersmith, Shaun Bailey, pictured right, has his own iPhone app for campaigning, likely to be copied by others.

LIB DEM: Has its own election software, EARS, to log canvass returns and plan polling-day action. Sophisticated software is one of the most expensive weapons in the new media armoury, putting the cash-starved Libs at a disadvantage, but a University of Essex study earlier this year still found more voters reporting direct contact, such as phone canvassing, from the Lib Dems than from Labour (with the Conservatives outgunning both other parties).

OTHERS: Watch for a non-partisan viral video later this month made by T otalPolitics magazine to boost turnout, featuring Alastair Campbell, Ann Widdecombe, the blogger Guido Fawkes and an all-star cast lip-synching to the Bucks Fizz hit "Making Your Mind Up". NothingBritish, the website set up to challenge the BNP from the mainstream right, has also produced imaginative campaigns on a shoestring which are a model for all parties fighting the extreme right.

LABOUR: The party came late to the manipulation of Google Adwords (which allow users to buy the right to ads displayed against key search terms) but used it during Channel 4's Ask the Chancellors debate, linking to rebuttal of the Tories' planned NI cut in real time as Alistair Darling spoke. The experiment may be repeated during the leaders' debates. Some Labour activists are encouraging repeated clicking on Tory online ads in an attempt to run up the party's bills (under Google's system the advertiser pays every time someone clicks on the ad).

CONSERVATIVE: Hired a search engine optimisation specialist in 2007: what's the point of having great content if nobody can find it? The Tories have invested heavily in Google Adwords, buying the right to advertise against terms ranging from James Purnell (just after he quit) to various keywords associated with the budget - which means anyone searching for such newsworthy events will see a Tory version of them high up the list. Candidates are also encouraged to use Google Adwords relating to key places in their constituencies such as local hospitals or schools.

LIB DEM: Only started buying Google Adwords in the last few weeks, and uses advertising on Facebook to drive traffic to its page there. But, with fewer resources, it has been slower to use search in sophisticated ways.

OTHERS: Aggregator sites such as PoliticsHomeUK comb the net for key political material so you don't have to, or look at (on Twitter) @tweetminster.

Crowdsourcing

LABOUR: Labour launched a competition to crowdsource a new ad campaign, which backfired when the winner (depicting David Cameron as 80s TV cop Gene Hunt) ended up making Cameron look so cool the Tories rushed out their own version. It has done better with its "Change We See" initiative to crowdsource photographs of new buildings and projects under Labour. Ed Miliband hosted a website appealing for ideas for Labour's manifesto, while government hosted a campaign inviting suggestions to improve public services.

CONSERVATIVE: The party has taken the lead on crowdsourcing, offering £1m to anyone who can design a workable "crowdsourcing" website for a future Tory administration to tap into public views on policy. When it got hold of a leaked copy of an unpublished government IT strategy, it published the document online and appealed to the public to suggest improvements. Less successful was a recent attempt to crowdsource the party's response to the last budget by asking the public to point out any loopholes or stealth taxes they spotted: it's not clear what insights were gained into what was an unusually straightforward budget.

LIB DEM: The Lib Dems had already started crowdsourcing poster ideas via their own social media website, Act, before Labour launched its own ill-fated competition. But they have been more sceptical about the wisdom of crowds than the Tories, with senior Lib Dems arguing Facebook is just as good at allowing ordinary people to express views or pass tips to the leadership.

OTHERS: The Twitter feed @Eyespymp logs random sightings of MPs at Westminster sourced from the public. How long before an MP is spotted somewhere embarrassing? Poblish.org is a new aggregator of political blogs which urges bloggers to come together and use their collective knowledge to challenge existing traditional media.
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Gaby Hinsliff The phrase is fast becoming the most overused cliche of the 2010 election, yet it all starts from a misunderstanding. When the pollster Deborah Mattinson predicted a " Mumsnet election", endless speculation about middle-class mothers' voting plans followed. But what really interested her was the way the parenting website is changing political debate.