A.Connector

This week has been a funny one on these lovely “socnets” of the zeitgeist. First
one of my favorite podcasters and bloggers:Dave Slusher lashes out at Robert Scoble (an admired source on emerging technologies) for being a silly navel gazer fixated on shiny objects and the newest fads (hmm, haven’t been tracking Scoble long but isn’t that what he’s being read by so many for?). Another mild quake occurred when Robert Scoble accused Chris Brogan (an admired proponent of social communities on the Net) of using him (well all of us) that joined the Grasshopper’s Facebook group. Chris formed a group on Facebook and got a very good and quick response, only to inform everyone that the group is moving to Ning which will be the main site but will be on GoogleGroups too (my head spinning now). This all surrounded by chants of Facebook rawks/Facebook sucks.

I’ve been trying to make sense out of all this confusion love you/hate you meme. What does it all mean? What can we learn here? Well nothing new. People have always been fickle, picked sides, and had egos. One thing that is still kind of new is the consequence of shooting your mouth off on the Internet which leaves a Google record that follows you around and becomes a heavy clinking chain when you decide to change your mind dramatically on any given
position. While strong opinions are the grist of good linkable blogposts, they can be very unforgiving when the opinion giver has a change of heart and starts to vacillate on his firm opinion of yore.

This kind of reminds me of our governments in international relations. China is good-our friends; then policy shifts and you get,” the menacing red hordes”… Governments are comprised of people too. What is more alarming to me is how so many people are merciless in their judgement and scathing comments about content on the Internet which is mostly provided free. Well let’s back up here-free to the reader, listener or watcher. Not free to the producer. Yet when a person reads a post they don’t care for or feels a blogger’s posted too many times
on the same thing they start screaming bloody murder, like a baby with a dirty diaper needing to be cleaned of its mess.

Why don’t we stop reading if it bothers us so, or take a break for a few posts. It’s like the train wreck watcher’s, “Oh my God, that is so horrible, and so much blood,” and they just keep on looking and shaking their heads in disgust and horror? We people are so funny in so many ways. Many wonder what is the standard of the Internet for quality?

Woody Allen once joked of his experience in the Catskills borscht belt comedy circuit. One old guy turns to his friend and complains that the food is so lousy in the hotel. His friend nods his head knowingly and adds, “Such small portions too.”

Are the Tweets too small at 140 characters? Scoble a rotten scoundrel for only offering Facebook, IPhone apps, and a couple of videos today? This buffet of ours works like this friends-eat what you can, and leave the rest. Our assumption is that you know what is nourishing to your system. Bon apetit!