Clunky Flow

via Ina.

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From here:

The problem that I’m seeing with most of the current social networks is that 90% of the time spent on those social networks is work that is done in order to maintain currency, keep content fresh, and continue building a sprawling network of friends and raise popularity.

So, what does that mean? What it boils down to is this: If you are working for your social network instead of your social network working for you, you my friend, are standing on top of a classic MMO-style treadmill grind.

I have bobbed in and out of various social networks and there is something that every single one of them had in common: for me to gain any value from that network, I had to go out of my way to perform repetitive, out-of-band tasks just to gain any value from the network. Having been the victim of many a MMO treadmill grind, I recognize an infinite loop of horse poo when I see it, so I bailed.
I have yet to find a measurable value in Facebook or any of a dozen other social networks I’ve played with.

At some point, someone is going to get it “right”, and there will be a social network that gives us tremendous value without us having to sacrifice for the cause, and all of the apologists using MySpace, Facebook, and the others who don’t know they’re apologists will flee to the new network in droves.

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If you’ve been talking to me at all you probably heard me say stuff like this.

Connecting ‘people 2 info’ is trumped by connecting ‘people 2 people’.
Google is great at connecting people to information. But a better way to create new knowledge is to connect people to people. When you connect to people they discover and create new knowledge. And people find this activity deeply rewarding and highly addictive. As the guys discoverio say ‘..discovery is the new cocaine’.

The company that manages this will be bigger than Google
To give people what they want. To really connect people online. We have to create the same sense of privacy, reputation, identity and trust online that we take for granted in the real world.

I came across this today. An article riffing on a comment made by a leading VC…

Search is dead…[In the near future, people will] find what they want by using their social network rather than a search algorithm. After all, the people in your online social network should know you better than a mathematical equation, right?

Social discovery pivots on identity

…this focus on online identity is what could turn search upside down… it’s conceivable that the information could attempt to find us—the old concept of push media, but in a far more refined way. As new content enters the Web, it could tumble through the various filters that you set up around your identity…

The unholy mess of privacy and security issues show us where the pivotal opportunity lies

…[currently] nobody owns this space the way Google “owns” search. And as it evolves, there will be an unholy mess of privacy and security issues to work out.

This kind of talk was the ever-constant ever-recurring theme at the Web2.0 expo this last week in San Francisco. And this has made me even more excited about RelevantM than ever. If that were even possible.

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First battle with jet lag started here. Good buzz.

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O’REILLY CAPTURES IT IN A NUTSHELL

Conference blurbs usually drop me into a coma with their schmarketing speek. But not from O’Reilly Media for the Web2.0 conference.

Web 2.0 technologies are empowering us in ways we could only have imagined even just a few years ago.
We’re able to… connect more, have more fun,…and do it all faster.
But as the pace…accelerates, separating signal from noise, useful from annoying…becomes increasingly challenging.

How can we provide a more meaningful experience … have a positive impact on the world we live in?…deliver relevant information…increase conversation and collaboration?

Right on the money. And a word perfect context for explaining…

What MAKES RELEVANT MEDIA UNIQUE in the Web2.0 ecosystem.
In a nutshell:
Relevant Media works ‘with reality’.
Rather than working with ‘models of reality’.

All existing social tools begin by capturing something of real life into a model of some sort. Social networks, for example, try to create an online model of your real world social network. Recommendations engines create a model of what to recommend based on the expression of your tastes by you and your friends.

The problem with models:
The problems with models is that by definition they only capture aspects of the real thing

And this in turn leads to instances where the model and the reality clash. For an example you can take any problem peculiar to online social networks. And I include all those problems related to breakdowns of privacy, reputation, identity and trust. All result from incidents where there have been unanticipated breakdowns or clashes between the model and the reality.

Reality bites:
What is needed are tools and platforms that support, merge and coevolve with the dynamics of social reality

Relevant Media’s tools and platforms couple and coevolve with the emergent and dynamic characteristics of real life social interaction as opposed to trying to capture reality and shoehorn it into a model of the real thing.

This is what gives us a unique ability to better answer all those questions raised by O’Reilly for the upcoming Web2.0 expo.

If you are there, make sure to look me up here on Crowdvine and come over for a chat.

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The deadline for receipt of applications for the 2008 SEI Awards is this Friday 4th April @ 5pm.

Here’s a quick Q&A I had with Paul Browne via email that may well be of broader interest:

Paul Browne: Hi Niall, Hope life is treating you well. Been thinking about the Social Entrepreneurs stuff since Barcamp Dublin and your blogpost reminded me to get my act together. I realise that my take-over-the-world-startup-plan(!) will have to wait in line behind yours and James Corbett (was talking to him about it at the blog awards), but a couple of questions on the whole thing:

Paul Browne:- Do you get more out of the socialentrepreneurs thing (in both help,
funding and contacts) than the time that you put in?

Niall Larkin: A very definite yes :)

Paul Browne: - How reasonable are they - are they looking at the ideas, or will they
push back on an idea because you didn’t fill in section 1b on the form?

Niall Larkin: They were very open to ideas.

Paul Browne:-How do they compare to other sources of help (like the M50 Startup
programme or dealing with EI)?

Niall Larkin: Compared favourably. I did the M50 at the same time. Very similar in many ways

Paul Browne:- Do they help with office space, or did you get that from another source?

Niall Larkin: When I did it most people had their own office space. Awardees are spread right around the country and commonly rooted in their own communities. That’s a good question to direct here.

Paul Browne:- Would you apply to them again?

Niall Larkin: I would :) and would encourage anyone to apply and wish good luck to any prospective applicants.

The deadline for receipt of applications for the 2008 SEI Awards is this Friday 4th April @ 5pm.

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Dan Trevino had this to say over on Jaiku on a conversational thread that spun off from something Damien Mulley said in passing here

“Twitter is for the socially inept. You cant carry on any kind of conversation there, and maybe its not designed for that. Thats fine, but to me its just too messy…Twitter love is irrational…”

I wholeheartedly dis/agree. Here’s why:

Irrational love is compelling love

I totally agree that twitter love is irrational. But irrational love is also compelling love. The most compelling kind of love. Its the kind of love you want to experience in your life. Its the kind of love you should seek to cultivate. If you are interested in getting into business, its the kind of love you should hope your offerings inspire. Ask people why they love twitter and they are likely to shrug and coyly say ‘I dunno…’ Which is charming in its own way.

Rational love is NOT compelling love…
Jaiku love on the other hand is 100% rational. And much less compelling for that. Rational love is not compelling love. Love is an irrational commitment. Rational love? There is no such thing. Rational choice is the safe choice. Its the comfort zone. Ask a jaikuist why they love jaiku and they’ll rationally assert that it has a rich set of features that make it possible to control the noise and better manage conversations.

I’m bringing the party down. Why can’t I just lighten up a bit?
Even you geekiest of geeks and nerdiest of nerds recognise that one fault they have is that their conversational instincts can sometimes tend to bring the party down. That sometimes they are inclined to be blind to the fact that considered conversation is inappropriate and should be dropped when all are gathered for the purpose of having fun.

Its a GOOD thing to LOSE the conversational thread
The socially inept are those who are considered to be blind to or choose to ignore social cues obvious to the rest. Those that shy away from messy social situations where they are required to improvise. Those that are uncomfortable in confusing social situations. Confusing social situations where it is easy and in fact socially necessary to lose the conversational thread.

Twitter’s main feature is that it runs interference against deep and meaningfuls
The socially inept might well miss the point of Twitter. Twitter is not about considered opinion and considered conversation. Its main feature is that it runs interference against the social instinct to engage in deep and meaningful conversation.

Interference is a social lubricant
This interference is a social lubricant. As I’m fond of saying, people play loud music at parties for precisely the same reason. They want to run interference against the human instinct to sit down and have considered conversation. You know. Considered conversation being the type of conversation that is not conducive to a party atmosphere.

Irrational love feels so good
Some of the people who go to parties with loud music will naturally gravitate away from the action towards the kitchen. In some ways, Jaiku is the kitchen area at the microblogging party. While twitter is the main party room. Whether we are able to join in fully or not, we are all drawn to the buzz and activity of a party. Its a hard wired instinct. Its not rational. Its instinctual. And all the more real for that. And its deeply rewarding to our psyches to engage. And if we are unable to engage. Then at least to hover nearby.

Hows that for a detailed exposition of the light and fluffy? Heavy going? Time to lighten up with a bit of music. And who better and appropriate at this time than Jona Lewie.

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First the Bad News:

An impending recession means its bad news if you are in geared in deeply with the VCs and need to move rapidly on from trading on your cool new Web2.0-ish-ness to start demonstrating substantial short-term returns on investment.

And now the Good News:

Its good news if you can bootstrap, grow organically and emerge the other side. Where it’ll be a lot quieter. And much easier to get yourself heard. And by corollary good news for the YCombinator and SeedCamp model.

Via VentureBeat.com

Jon Fisher -a board member for several Silicon Valley based start-ups- predicts a “massive wave” of start-up technology company bankruptcies in the next quarters, as they run out of funding, struggle to make money and fail to find acquirers. On the other hand, some think that if companies can make it through the next several months, they’ll be especially well positioned for the ensuing economic recovery, in part because of reduced competition.

Plus ca change.

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And loving their now famous Engrish tagline:

Enjoy our *** Komfort in a cosy harmoniously atmosphere!

And get a load of all these ski runs. They better be prepared. We mean business. Those nursery slopes won’t know what hit them.

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From today’s New York Times

Kids played Dungeons and Dragons in basements instead of socializing. Geeks like algorithms. We like sets of rules that guide future behavior. But people, normal people, consistently act outside rule sets. People are messy and unpredictable, until you have something like the Dungeons & Dragons character sheet. Once you’ve broken down the elements of an invented personality into numbers generated from dice, paper and pencil, you can do the same for your real self.

For us, the character sheet and the rules for adventuring in an imaginary world became a manual for how people are put together. Life could be lived as a kind of vast, always-on role-playing campaign.

We geeks might not be able to intuit the subtext of a facial expression or a casual phrase, but give us a behavioral algorithm and human interactions become a data stream. We can process what’s going on in the heads of the people around us. Through careful observation of body language and awkward silences, we can even learn to detect when we are bringing the party down with our analysis of how loop quantum gravity helps explain the time travel in that new “Terminator” TV show. I mean, so I hear.

Facebook and other social networks ask people to create a character — one based on the user, sure, but still a distinct entity. Your character then builds relationships by connecting to other characters. Like Dungeons & Dragons, this is not a competitive game. There’s no way to win. You just play.

This diverse evolution from [Dungeons and Dragons] goes much further. Every Gmail login, every instant-messaging screen name, every public photo collection on Flickr, every blog-commenting alias is a newly manifested identity, a character playing the real world.

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