Remember this bit of strategic foreshadowing? No? Well, that’s why Al Gore invented the hyperlink.
So my pal Ed and I sat down and had a little chat about the social web and what a sticky wicket it is, and we recorded that conversation for posterity and for a time capsule element I will one day beam into my children’s head pods’ humor modules. My one regret is that I was having such a mouth-stuffing love affair with my honey-slathered bagel that I didn’t make some of the points I should have. Good food gives me temporary amnesia, so what? But honestly, if you read this post, you get the gist of where I’m going with my thoughts anyway.
The point is that the social web has such amazing potential for connections that never before could have existed. But I am scared about where we are headed because companies looking to get in on a good thing are hell bent on fucking it all up. The image I keep getting in my head is of an over-eager chihuahua frantically humping a human leg. You are the leg, these companies seeking to infiltrate and control are the chihuahua. They want your attention, they want you to like them, they want your thumbs ups, they want you to opt into the game, but on the flipside, they want you to play by their rules and conduct yourself 24 hours a day as if you are a roaming ambassador for them. What you do is what the company is. Your living out loud on the web means you are subject to constant scrutiny and potential regulation by your employer. Doesn’t that scare you? It surely scares me, and I have a fairly boring life and a fairly lenient employer.
Anyway, listen to the conversation if that’s your bag, and then check back. I was Ed’s guinea pig, so I’m super excited to see where he takes his project once he starts sitting down with the really interesting people he knows.