* <<J759JZH0>> Next-level social
Created: 9/3/2017, 2:42:54 PM
So, I got this email the other day from a startup that was looking
for people who want to "take their social to the next level."
..
Lady, my "social" is at such a low level, taking it to the next level
would only entail responding to more than one comment every three
months.
Why is it that I don't post anything to Instagram, or Twitter, or
Facebook, or whatever other service people are flocking to at the
moment? Should I get into that? 'Cause I'm happy to get into that.
For a start: what fucking year is it? 1979?
1991?
Do any of you remember Compuserve, or Prodigy, or America OnLine?
A brief history lesson for those of you that don't: in the dark days
before widespread consumer Internet access there were a number of
competing "online services" that provided information, shopping, and
communication facilities. They were all "walled gardens" as we say:
you could enjoy the scenery and mingle with the people on one
service, but you were cut-off from people on other services.
Ultimately, Internet access, email, and the World Wide Web obviated
all of those proprietary services. Why?
Try for a moment to imagine a world in which you can only call people
who use the same phone carrier as you.
Would that not be insane?
How about a world in which you can only send packages to people in
your postal network.
Is that not completely idiotic?
Of course, we have to change the analogy somewhat to more closely map
it to the current state of affairs. As accounts/memberships at the
various "social" walled gardens are free, people have accounts across
three, ten, maybe a dozen services, so a better analogy would be that
before you can send Bob a package, you have to find out whether Bob
has a UPS account, or a FedEx account, or a DHL account, or whatever.
The bottom-line is that the social media landscape is comprised of a
number of companies offering superficially different versions of the
same services, each of which is existentially threatened by the
concept of an open and extensible social media framework that any
software developer can implement, and which favors no single company
or application above any other.
--
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©2017 Adam C. Moore (LÆMEUR) <
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