• by George Simpson , Featured Contributor, September 26, 2005

Last week, the New York City Police Department launched a podcast. While hoping for a list of songs that psych up cops speeding in response to a crime in progress (Queen? The Rolling Stones? The Ramones?) or tapes of detectives talking 13-year-old kids into confessions, users instead found a traffic alert on street closures around the United Nations, an advisory on identity theft, and props for NYPD officers sent to the Gulf Coast to aid in Hurricane Katrina relief. "We intend to use this for crime prevention messages, for counterterrorism messages, for recognition of police officers who are doing a good job," Police Commissioner Ray Kelly told NY1.

Cutting to the chase, Jonathan Spira, chief analyst at Basex, an IT research firm and apparently a man with no outstanding parking tickets, said in one news report: "There are certain types of information which tend to lend themselves to formats such as podcasting. Safety tips and information about alerts of various kinds, including hurricanes and terrorists, do not come to mind for this medium. While it's admirable for the NYPD to embrace new technologies, I am not certain that this is the most effective use of resources."

It seems we have returned to the glory days of yesteryear, when folks were hellbent on rushing into new technology without really pausing to wonder if the use of that technology makes any sense at all. Is there an IT heart beating anywhere which doesn't positively skip at the mention of blogs and RSS and podcasts and text messaging? You would have thought we'd have learned something from push technology the first time it crashed the Internet party. After the burst, you couldn't get someone to be a first-mover without kidnapping their spouse (or offering four tickets to the World Series--whichever they perceived to have greater value.) Now, as evidenced by our very own well-meaning NYPD, the lemmings are again leaping into the sea.

Just because it's easy to create a blog doesn't mean you should. What happens when, after your ninth post, you completely run out of ideas--or have no worthwhile thoughts to begin with, a situation rampant in the blog world? You then become like the teenager who sits in subway cars singing along with his iPod to a tune no one else can hear. To him it is a display of lyrical talent that deserves admiration, when it's just an annoying addition to the cacophony that is life in the city.

The same can be said of podcasts. The NYPD didn't consider that by the time you downloaded the podcast and plugged it into your car audio system, the overturned car on the approach to the Whitestone Bridge would have long since been removed. Besides, there is another medium in most cars that can better deliver real-time news. It's called a radio. Perhaps the boys in blue could figure out how to send traffic alerts to your GPS system or cell phone--something most people would probably be glad to pay for. Since it's against the law to talk on a cell phone in New York City while driving, the police could set up "cell traps" where they send audio or text alerts--then bust you when you pick up.

Imagine getting up from the dinner table (like anybody ever has a family dinner anymore) to answer the phone and hear a recorded advertisement. Your anger wouldn't subside until well after the 11 p.m. reruns of "Seinfeld." That's no different than hauling out your mobile to find that your latest text message is just spam. With any luck, you are standing outside the agency responsible for the ad, so you can sprint up eight flights of steps and disable the new media director in one spectacularly satisfying kung fu move. Be sure to stand over his crumpled body and say: "I don't give a goddamn how many teenagers send text messages in Europe and Japan."

Technology is tempting, I know. But creating pop-ups that defeat everyone's pop-up blocker doesn't make you cool--it makes you annoying. So do blogs that aren't worth reading and podcasts that aren't worth downloading--and ads that should never be sent in the first place.