Comments on: Lost Horizon: Online Utopias, But for Whom?

By: Steve Newson

Steve Newson — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 19:04:00 +0000

As ever Kent, a thought provoking post. I’ve tried most of the new wave; Facebook, Pownce, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter. I don’t think any of them have legs (for me) with the exception of Facebook. I can’t put my finger on it completely at the moment but it’s the only one from which I’ve gotten any value; and probably not in a way that I expected. It’s as simple as knowing what colleagues at work get up to away from work and at the weekend; stimulating conversations when we bump into each other. Simple but amazingly powerful.

By: Dwight Silverman

Dwight Silverman — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 16:23:00 +0000

Blogs are for those who have something to say. That’s why your daughter, Claus, didn’t get into it. She’s more interested in the ongoing back-and-forth interaction common to her age, so social networking’s more her speed. Someday, when she’s inspired or passionate about a subject, she may come back to it.You’re right that blogging is not one-way; conversations take place in many ways — in comments, between blogs, even between networks of blogs sometimes.Kent, this is an excellent post, but one clarification. AOL’s irritation didn’t come just from its filtered view of the Internet — you could, after all, launch IE or Netscape at the time and “surf naked” when connected to AOL — but rather from its e-mail spam; its bloated software; its klunky interface; its worthless tech support; and its overwhelming adveritsing and marketing.Facebook’s becoming irritating with the proponderence of applications that are fun by pointless. I enjoyed the Zombie app when it first became available because it was funny. But now we’ve got all kinds of variants of it, and anytime someone wants us to participate in some social aspect involving that app, you must install it to complete the interaction. That’s incredibly irritating, and it brings Facebook closer to MySpace. At this point, I want all these apps to just go away, to simplify things there. Even my daughter, who uses Facebook as many kids do, finds the constant app-attack annoying. One of the things that becoming a Mac user has taught me is that simplicity increases the pleasure of usage. Maybe the guys at Facebook need to buy more Macs.

By: Claus Valca

Claus Valca — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 13:42:00 +0000

I agree as well, Kent.I took a mass-media class in college while I was flirting with a journalism major at the time.One of the few things I remembered from that class was the following phrase: The Medium is the Massage (sic)I picked up on the concept of blogging very quickly being a technical writer and documentarian for our IT group. It was a great and flexible way to convey a message in as much detail or brevity as appropriate.My daughter tried blogging at age twelve two times and has dropped it (for now). Instead she has gravitated to MySpace where her friends also hang out. (Me? Too many ads and the interface looks like…well, you know…) But she expects an ad-saturated on-line environment. It’s what her generation seems to expect…dare I say…even demand?She tosses her nose at Twitter…who wants that! And many of the other social web waves crashing on the digital shores.Between text messaging (IM gone portable) and MySpace for longer, brief chatter she is happy.I carry a BlackBerry for my job and while I love being in the loop getting my full emails, my responses are brief or not at all. It just isn’t a good fit for me with being able to comfortably communicate longer thoughts and concepts.I took my wife to the doctor’s office over the weekend and daughter wanted to stay home. So I was able to give her brief updates by text which fit perfectly with the medium. When I gave my wife’s parent’s an update, I called them…lots of questions lots of answers.Yes blogging is a “niche” but it is a very critical one and isn’t one-sided if done properly. Remember the “comments” if so enabled? A good blog post written for a target audience may generate some comments. Depending on the quality, those may generate a conversation between bloggers and readers. That conversation can then spawn new blogging content or concepts.Which reminds me of another thing I picked up in college and still haven’t been able to shake loose: Thesis, antithesis, synthesisGood blogging is mix of repacking current content in an new and personal way for a select audience while also seeding it with fresh posts that have personal material that might not be current yet, but has the potential to be seen that way by someone who joins the audience.To manage it all with the wealth of material on the Web? The humble old RSS feeds.Kinda like the modern equivalent of opening up the paper and finding it has all the sections you want to read from all the papers you like to read.I would hazard that the real “sages” of this digital age are those stalwarts who publish core materials that are accurate and self-generated. Surrounding them are the “bloggers” who are the village message-runners who help interpret the sage’s messages and distribute it and expand it for the general village members. Then there are the villagers who just need to chatter and convey basic information as to who they are, what they are doing, and what they need.It’s a tiered distribution of information, and information transmittal methods dependent on the content being shared. Depending on where you sit and your role…you will choose the medium that best fits the message you carry or need to hear.All are good and all have their own place in the village. The danger is in discounting one form as declining because we personally use another.How we choose to covey our message says as much (or sometimes more) than the message we have to say itself.I might just even take Dwight’s blog post, and your blog post, and my comment here and remix them again with a post on my own blog.Blogs are one-way conversations? Methinks not!

By: Dennis Belmont

Dennis Belmont — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 13:27:00 +0000

Finally someone who gets it! I’ve found that it doesn’t matter how much you tell “normal” clients about how Social Networking is the wave of the future, they still look back at me with a blank stare and say, “yeah, but that doesn’t really apply to my market.”The fact is, unless you’re an uber-company with high-profile product, the average human being is not going to be following you around on Twitter, or poking you on Facebook, or in many cases, even reading your blog.Great post, Kent.

By: Ethan

Ethan — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 04:53:00 +0000

Wow, this is one of your best posts, Kent. Lots to mull over, thanks!