Global Culture

Yesterday, in my usual monitoring of web analytics patterns of this blog, I witnessed a beautiful event: a swarm of users drop by for a few minutes, courtesy of StumbleUpon. The unusual peak came as a nice surprise even after a great week as a result of recent exposure through the Weblog Awards. In StumbleUpon, users are suggested new sites to visit based on their previous history, and the more people liking a particular site, the more likely it will be suggested to others. The analogy with a swarm or flock comes from the elegant organization that the group achieves without an appointed leader.

In an interview for the British Broadcasting Corporation in 1965, McLuhan explained some of his ideas around the Electric Age:

If the wheel is an extension of feet, and tools of hands, back, arms, electromagnetism seems to be in its technological manifestations an extension of our nerves and becomes mainly an information system. It is, above all, a feedback or looped system.

While web analytics provide a great deal of feedback about users visiting a particular site, I find the most important piece of information is understanding the context with which these users perceive the site. To put it simply, to really understand why a swarm of users is suddenly attracted to these words, I had to join them for a little while reaching some fascinating destinations, not unlike anything I would’ve used here eventually.

When asked about the impact of electric technology to the content we access, McLuhan said:

You cannot cope with vast amounts of information in the old fragmentary classified patterns. You tend to go looking for mythic and structural forms in order to manage such complex data moving at very high speeds. So the electrical engineers often speak of pattern recognition

Elaborating on the participation of which I wrote in lonelytv, an interactive medium such as the blogosphere provides the feedback mechanisms that allow information to flow in and out of our nervous system and augment our perception of the reality in which we live. I write, swarm likes, I join the swarm and evething I see while being part of the swarm is a thought I did not have while writing but have now. The wealth of information, however, requires the development of specific pattern recognition skills. The rewards are amazing, though. Just check the set of images I saw while being part of the swarm.