Wednesday, December 24, 2003|
The Social Limits of Social Software We have come to the end of a tumultuous year on the Internet and in real life, and it's a good point to sum up what we've built and learned. There's been plenty of self-congratulation as we went along, so here's instead a look at a couple of controversial places where limits are appearing. Over at BoingBoing, Cory Doctorow pleads: ....I have a special request to the toolmakers of 2004: stop making tools that magnify and multilply awkward social situations ("A total stranger asserts that he is your friend: click here to tell a reassuring lie; click here to break his heart!") ("Someone you don't know very well has invited you to a party: click here to advertise whether or not you'll be there!") ("A 'friend' has exposed your location, down to the meter, on a map of people in his social network, using this keen new location-description protocol -- on the same day that you announced that you were leaving town for a week!"). I don't need more "tools" like that, thank you very much.What he said. For an instance, the addition of a 'check your business cards against our network' function over at LinkedIn has escalated the number of pings from people who I might have met once, for five minutes, at a conference three years - but they still have my card. Didn't take long to hit the point of diminishing returns. Stewart Alsop circulated an e-mail wondering to what extent we VCs and others of like bent were creating a 'false positive' on business social software, simply because we all piled in to play with it. He could be on to something. On the public discourse front, Jeff Jarvis questions the actual impact of the Internet Deanies, and quotes approvingly from Jonathan Chait: Deanies seem to exist in a isolated cultural milieu in which everybody is secular, socially liberal, and antiwar. They can't fathom why those things might hurt Dean in a general election because they don't ever talk to or read anybody who thinks differently. Dean's Internet networking--which has had lots of positive effects on American politics--has probably intensified this cloistering, by creating intellectual ghettos on the web where true believers can interact, undisturbed by those who don't share their faith.Back in March the Smart Mobs crowd was being self-congratulatory about the use of mobiles for coordinating and documenting anti-war protests. Omitting the inconvenient fact that the self-same protests were totally ineffectual in even delaying the onset of combat, and by some polls became counterproductive objects of ridicule. Not so coincidentally, the very next post on Smartmobs reports the use of Meetup by the Dean campaign, which has by now moved along to using explicitly social software. The same crowd, and apparently the same delusion that talking to already like-minded people will move an electorate. The Internet augmented with social software may be a good place to organize for action, whether it be protests, Dean fund raising, toys for Iraqi kids, or books for soldiers. But it seems it can also become an isolating echo chamber, potentially deadly when the goal is changing minds on a large scale. It's going to be an interesting year...
(Jarvis now has more, in a conversation with John Robb, wondering if this same isolation could lead the Deanies to bolt the party if their man isn't the nominee.) |
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Good luck, Beagle 2 The Brit's Mars probe, Beagle 2, is scheduled to land this evening - in the early hours of Xmas, European time. The Mars Express carrier craft will insert into Mars orbit about the same time. Good luck to both! Memo to Mars ghouls: These are not Xmas presents for you, leave 'em alone! BTW, Beagle 2 has a house blog.
Update: Rats. It's looking increasingly like the ghouls enjoyed another light snack at the expense of the European space program. Potential next courses for the menu: NASA's Mars Rovers, set to arrive Jan 3 and 24th. Hope they fare better... |
