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A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. —Robert A. Heinlein
Sat Sep 20 8:30 am, 2008
Claire Miller at the NYTimes reminds us: "How many more new social networking or micro-blogging or video-sharing site can one person use?". I've wondered when, like the lending bubble, the social networking bubble is going to burst -- seemingly every tech department on the planet over the last few years seem to be focusing on building community, social, and micro-status type web applications. The thought of logging on to facebook, myspace, twitter, pownce, etc., etc., (multiply this by N attendees at the web 2.0 conference) every single day is daunting. There just aren't enough hours to follow and post that much. So does this become like magazines did in the 90's? Magazines became focused on catering to smaller specific groups, magazines almost all became trade magazines, stabilizing circulation for a while but killing growth or innovation. Twitter, whom I respect but don't use, even has a blurb on their homepage "When I first started doing it, I thought, 'geez, not another website to worry about updating and checking', but now I'm glad I did it." So in answer to the question "Wanna Be A Member" I say, yes, sure, but crap, sorry, no time left in the day. So will the desire to 'micro-blog' your every thought and movement be so overwhelming that an industry grows up around automatically monitoring and posting everytime you buy a bran muffin? Will humans begin evolving to a super-caffeinated non-sleep creature 100% in self-promotion content-creation mode for an audience of 500 followers? In a decentralized community each member is at liberty, or encouraged, to believe they are the center, and that certainly is a strange kind of new Me generation.
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