We’re now in Week at least Two of the great drought of ‘09, where the blogosphere has woken up to the poverty of its attention algorithms and is frantically searching to harness the Gesture model as quantified by Twitter et al. Before I go much further, let me say that this problem has already been tackled and largely solved. But the fact that this hasn’t gotten much apparent traction suggests no one is really happy with a solution.
As I’ve said for perhaps 3 or 4 years, we are in the evolution from an attention model to a gesture model. Twitter represents the latest and greatest instantiation of gestures, where apparently unprovoked statements circulate aysnchronous (or asymetric) overlapping Follow clouds and provide a dynamic DVR control for Web content. Now that rich media platforms are emerging on top of this console (Gmail, Mesh, Flash) the battle has shifted from control to contract.
What people call filtering is the contouring of dynamic systems to reflect the aggregate gestures of affinity groups. Whether it’s the affinity group as modeled by a single individual (Techmeme) or the gestural cloud orbiting individual brands (TechCrunch, Scoble, O’Reilly, Feldman) or even the collective noise of Digg, Google, or Huffington, the power of affiliation continues to trump most every business model of the outgoing generation.
This is most dearly felt by those who pioneered this era, by those who see those leaders as Old and In the Way, by those who try and force this transition into Us versus Them, a generational shift that is incorrectly positioned around age. One of the virtues of age is the lessons of survival, and more specifically the calculation of how many heartbeats to parcel out over which concerns. Today’s noise is about the lack of signal, or the efficiency (or lack of it) of systems to harvest the signal.
Break down the arguments for a new Techmeme: no matter how you atomize it, you won’t find a better car than the one you like the best. W.C. Fields is still a funny guy. Lenny is still the master, Pryor the one who crossed over into the center of the human condition and forever erased the color “barrier.” Will a Techmeme killer come along? No. Techmeme will kill itself before that, because Gabe will move on to something he loves more. And I’ll probably move with him. I like Gabe.
The cry for more, better news is the urge for moving forward, for finding the next hill to climb, the space race, the perfect wave. Believing otherwise seems hopeless, pathetic, angry, unacceptable. Believing something is great does not imply nobody can do better. It does imply that if somebody can also do something great, that will be better because it’s something to add to the pile of great. It doesn’t detract from what’s great; it ratifies what’s great.
So here’s to the Drought of ‘09. Let’s rail against it, debate it, ignore it, shut off our computers, quit Twitter, auto-follow everybody, follow nobody, release track, never offer track ever again, argue about nothing, make lists of authoritative people, call each other stupid, be stupid professionally, get fired, quit while we’re behind, speak only with sarcasm, be completely honest, run for the OpenID board, declare RSS dead, link to everybody, link only to your friends, link never, only take left turns while driving.
In a drought, we conserve. Flush less frequently. Take showers instead of baths. If this is a drought, a lack of value, is that in and of itself valuable to know? If Techmeme says nothing’s happening, do we settle? Dave Winer says let’s block Techmeme so we know it’s not authoritative. I do that all the time, by writing something stupid or boring or incomprehensible. Let’s all write more crap; that way Techmeme will really suck and then we can get rid of it in favor of some other guy’s stupid algorithm. Alright. Here’s my ante. Who’s with me?
You mean I haven’t been writing crap all along? Hot damn, I feel better already!
Oh, wait. That’s why I never make it onto Techmeme. or Memeorandum. ;-)
Great post, lots to think about. Every time I think I understand the attention v. gesture models I have to go back and make sure I really do. Or not.
Steve, I’ve been meaning to say this for a few posts now, and maybe nobody else has the courage to say it to you, but here goes… I have no idea what you are trying to communicate to your readers here.
Unlike your very lucid speaking and debating style, I find your writing here extremely difficult to follow… I mean no personal offense, but reading this is like being stuck in the corner of a campus pub with a drunk media theory professor from whom one cannot flee. All that’s missing are a few arcane references to recently dead Frenchmen and your unreadability will be complete…
I’d love to see some of your insights tightened up with a bit more exposition for those of us not so tightly dialed into your previously established perspectives.
Kind Regards,
David
lucid speaking and debating style? What evidence do you have for that? tightened up with a bit more exposition? interesting advice.
Arrington needs to use some sort of breathalyzer device to restrict Steve’s posts
I think I hear you saying “let’s keep going to see if we can get at what’s really important to us to read or know.” (which is therapist-speak for “huh?”)
No, I understand what you are saying. This is important, so many people have put out solutions, but none are perfect.
no, I’m saying solutions have been in place for at least 2 years but they are widely ignored. The market has yet to really find the problem. Track being stymied delays the awareness. Just a matter of time.
This will be on Techmeme shortly. Why? Because it already is on friendfeed. :-)
Hey I thought you said this piece was about me. I want some attention! :-)
“Now that rich media platforms are emerging on top of this console (Gmail, Mesh, Flash) the battle has shifted from control to contract.”
Gillmor, what are you smoking? Since when is Gmail a rich media platform? WTF?
Thank you for sharing this.
I agree with David above. I have tried to read your posts Steve but I can’t figure out what’s your key point often.
I’d consider thinking about your readers as much as your ideas. We all want to continue reading.
It’s all so clear and simple – those who don’t ‘get it’ lack the cumulative experience to ‘need it’ and, hence are intellectually unable to comprehend and experientially unable to utilize.
Don’t give up, keep trying – it all makes sense.
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You’re obviously a smart guy, you obviously have many smart people reading your posts intently and I think I understand the point you are trying to make.
However, you need to read some of your own sentences and realize how many whiz-bang words you are concatenating into Dilbert-like sentences that make no sense. It’s precisely sentences like those that follow which make technorati the butt of jokes by Scott Adams and the writers of “The Simpsons”.
Specifically:
Twitter represents the latest and greatest instantiation of gestures, where apparently unprovoked statements circulate aysnchronous (or asymetric) overlapping Follow clouds and provide a dynamic DVR control for Web content. Now that rich media platforms are emerging on top of this console (Gmail, Mesh, Flash) the battle has shifted from control to contract.
What people call filtering is the contouring of dynamic systems to reflect the aggregate gestures of affinity groups. Whether it’s the affinity group as modeled by a single individual (Techmeme) or the gestural cloud orbiting individual brands (TechCrunch, Scoble, O’Reilly, Feldman) or even the collective noise of Digg, Google, or Huffington, the power of affiliation continues to trump most every business model of the outgoing generation.