Steve Rubel says we are all monkeys

Steve Rubel is calling us all Monkeys on Treadmills.

He writes:

"Lately I have been thinking a lot about channels. Every day it seems there's a hot new Web 2.0 site that captures our attention.

We're a million monkeys running on treadmills, chasing the latest banana. Myself included! The breathing apparatus in the photo above reminds me of my Google Reader stream!

...

Surely, channels are where the action is at. However, it's important to remember they are just that - and they change. Circa 1998, perhaps when many of you were 10, The Globe.com, GeoCities and Tripod were all the rage. They faded from our horizon over time. The same thing will happen to many of today's hot sites. In fact, I advise marketers not to invest too much time in creating "a Facebook strategy" as much as they don't have "an NBC strategy" or "a New York Times strategy." Instead, I encourage them to people watch, learn and then plan based on their audience and the big picture."

It's funny that as soon as MySpace has lost the spotlight and people have given up developing stuff for it in a mad rush to Facebook that Steve/Edelman (who consult to Myspace) have started to downplay the importance of any given platform or ecosystem.

I don't disagree with the basic premise that Facebook is just a tool and tools come and go, but calling everyone monkeys and downplaying the Facebook strategy is a little hypocritical.

I've made my dislike of Myspace clear. Not only does it foster a lot of garbage interactions, it does business through FUD and tries to choke off the air supply of developers/companies who are trying to add value.

This is all changing now of course. Facebook's platform strategy has forced a change in direction for Youtube. The only question now is why their advisors didn't suggest doing it earlier. And why are they downplaying it now. Or if they did, why didn't they listen.

Facebook's platform play is a better approach - but it is still not really open. However even their small glimmer of openess was enough to attract massive attention.

As I've written before, Rupert Murdoch (The man in charge at Fox, Owners of Myspace) will have to learn that 'the Network' is the Internet, not the Fox Network.

The Attention Economy Vs. Flow - Continued

Steve Rubel posts about his information saturation.

He writes:

We are reaching a point where the number of inputs we have as individuals is beginning to exceed what we are capable as humans of managing. The demands for our attention are becoming so great, and the problem so widespread, that it will cause people to crash and curtail these drains. Human attention does not obey Moore's Law.

...

My attention has reached a limit so I have re-calibrated it to make it more effective. I think this issue is an epidemic. We have too many demands on our attention and the rapid success of Tim's book indicates that people will start to cut back on the information they are gorging. If this happens en masse, will it cause a financial pullback? Possibly if ad revenues sag as a result.

Stowe Boyd writes in response:

No, I think we need to develop new behaviors and new ethics to operate in the
new context.

Most people operate on the assumption that the response to increased flow is to intensify what was working formerly: read more email, read more blogs, write more IMs, and so on. And at the same time motor on with the established notions of what a job is, how to accomplish work and meet deadlines, and so on.

In a time of increased flow, yes, if you want to hold everything else as is -- your definition of success, of social relationships, of what it means to be polite or rude -- Steve is right: you will have to cut back.

Who is right? Who is wrong? Maybe Steve is just old and Stowe is divining the new social consciousness.

Maybe Stowe is just being an extreme purist (Stowe? Never!) and just needs to recognize that there is middle ground.

Maybe the middle ground - Flow based tools that help to refine the stream.

Our eye scan handle the sun - but sunglasses are nice too.

Sunday morning snippets

A few snippets for the day - then I am off to spend the day on a boat while Ashley and the team slave away cutting code for the next Touchstone build *evil laugh*.

Revising Press Releases
An Anonymous commenter pointed out for me that my mention of Stowe's post about PR people missing the point on Press Releases left out the other side of the discussion. I didn't know there was another side at the time but Chris Heuer has a post on the issue highlighting Stowe's oversights. I like Chris - he bought me a drink while I was in SF.

Chris' point is that while real conversational engagement with your participants is the ideal, Press Releases are still a necessary way to make (and clearly mark) landmark announcements in clear, concise ways. His point (rightly I believe) is that while purists would argue that a 1st person conversation is better than a fake 3rd person declaration, a Press Release is still an important hold-over for mainstream media to get the complete picture in a bite sized chunk

Stowe argues that declaring anything a 'Press Release' is missing the point. That Press (at least press who treat their readers like eyeballs) should die and that we should all be equal participants in the social media ecosystem. By the way I like Stowe too - he also bought me a drink!

My opinion on the matter is this. I think that anyone who takes the time to invent something, lobby for it and contribute to the community is doing the right thing. That's the definition of social.

The issue, however, is larger than this one point. When considering people's opinions we must take into account their bias and their agenda. My agenda is personalized aggregation. My life and my work is based on the premise that people should find what their looking because of their Attention Profile - a fingerprint that represents their interests.

If hRelease (the reason the issue of a Social Media Press Release is being discussed at all) helps Touchstone identify important headlines for journalists, then so be it. Ideally though, the connection of people with content they find relevant should be a transparent and automated process based on merit rather than any corporate press declarations. That might mean they find negative commentary before they find polished/fake/controlled press releases from a company.

I think both can co-exist though - and the community (and some smart algorithm) will decide which they pay attention to most.

Social Media is Dead
I also pointed to the 'Social Media is No Mo' post by Steve Rubel. Some people didn't realize I was being sarcastic when I 'agreed' with him. Brian Solis commented to point me to this post.

Social Media is Dead!

Steve Rubel from Persuasion says Social Media is Dead.

His claim is based on the fact that most mainstream media now has comments and forums and blogs etc... so there is no longer a difference between 'unsocial' and 'social' media - therefore it is now all just media.

What do you think? Is the mainstream media a product of social interactions or a highly controlled editorial process?

Maybe we are can call it Media 2.0

Interesting...