Some days it pays to follow the bunny trails. Having just finished Peter Morville’s Ambient Findability, I wandered down the web trail and found a snarky little thing he wrote for the O’Reilly web site called UFOs and there way down at the bottom I found a reference to Adam Greenfield’s “All Watched over by Machines of Loving Grace” — pays to read the footnotes and citations, no? Greenfield’s essay should be required reading to accompany Ambient Findability.
I liked Moreville’s book, but I found his childlike delight in the rise of the always findable future disconcerting. I have that typical introvert’s gut reaction of “hey, I don’t want you all to find me…” (Which Moreville alludes to/admits to in the UFO essay if not in Ambient Findability.)
Greenfeild’s essay balances this delight in the possibilities with a dose of realistic consideration.