The Rest of Us
Do you remember Apple’s early Macintosh ad tagline? It was: Macintosh. The Computer for the Rest of Us. That resonated with me at a time when personal computers were in their infancy and were ruled by the left brain among us (you know…those people that actually loved MS-DOS?). The right brain connected to the left brain of the Mac sucked me in and good user interfaces have never let me go.
I wanted then to live in Silicon Valley. Life (and love) kept me in Minnesota for a time before moving to Chicago and then moving back some years later. You know what? I’d like to be in the Valley now (except for the buying-the-house part of the adventure).
So it bugs me to know there are a whole bunch of people that can get in their cars and drive over to the SD Forum Search SIG meeting tonight. The panel on The Search for Attention features:
- Gabe Rivera, Memeorandum
- David Sifry, Technorati
- Seth Goldstein, Root Markets
- Mike Arrington, TechCrunch
I’d like to hear these four guys in person. Hmmm….let’s see. There are many of us out here in flyover country that are working real hard to stay abreast of developments in search and the attention economy. Also, there is a plethora of social sites, collaborative offerings, and ‘net technologies that could be leveraged to cast the net of inclusiveness a bit wider.
Am I expecting too much? Wouldn’t it be a good thing to include smart people that could, say, leverage all those API’s being delivered by these guys and others. The only way Web 2.0/NextGen Internet/<Your Name For It Here> is going to work is if concepts and development paradigms are embraced and extended all over the Web. Perhaps it’s time for a new kind of developer and business leader evangelism.
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About Steve Borsch
Strategist. Learner. Idea Guy. Salesman. Connector of Dots. Friend. Husband & Dad. CEO. Janitor. More here.
Connecting the Dots Podcast
Podcasting hit the mainstream in July of 2005 when Apple added podcast show support within iTunes. I'd seen this coming so started podcasting in May of 2005 and kept going until August of 2007. Unfortunately was never 'discovered' by national broadcasters, but made a delightfully large number of connections with people all over the world because of these shows. Click here to view the archive of my podcast posts.
Steve: We have recorded the session, and whilst the audio quality might be challenging (we had a lot of problems with the mics), you should get the gist of the session.
Thanks for commenting and giving me a heads-up (where is the file?). Wasn’t meant as any kind of a criticism, but instead I’ve been watching the local reaction to Ray Ozzie’s ETech demo, what it means, what could get built, and I just get frustrated having to put my butt on an airplane, pay thousands, and then find myself getting more out of the hallway conversations and introductions than the event content (not always, just mostly). Besides, with everything happening there at the drop-of-a-hat sometimes and socially, it’s not feasible.
The last five events I attended were phenomenal, and I still found myself learning a lot from blogs, with connections between event-goers and smart people back here at home, and thought there needs to be a better way.
Tony Perkins and his big cajones at the Always-On Stanford Innovation Summit — which I ‘attended’ virtually — amazed me. To have the guts to put chat up on the screen in the front of the room? Changed the dynamic, got me and others connected, engaged and involved, and I think both sides were the better for it.
Next gen internet is about participation, attention, community, collaboration and all those other people-to-people connection methods mapped online. With all that effort, there still aren’t good ways to allow connectivity with people geographically disbursed. Webex? Nope. Conference calls? Please. Chat? Nada. Tribe/Friendster/Zaadz and all the other social networking sites are cool, but it’s tough to get connected around an idea(s).
Super affinity groups online…that’s what we need.
I will post the location of the podcast on my blog once it is ready.
To your point about making content most widely available: yes, this would be great but producing audio and video of quality involves a logistics infrastructure that non-profits (like SDForum) or small companies typically don’t have in house.
Yes, it is possible to do a podcat or a videoblog is cheap, but if the quality is not there, it makes the experience far less valuable.