What's Old is New Again
Ross Mayfield makes some fine points in his
list of some post-.com-bubble social trends.
I realize that Ross is being a bit over-concise in an
attempt to create some pithy statements, but it seems to me that
there is some historical perspective lost during the
snipping in a couple of his points.
The Internet became a social medium — more people
are engaged socially online ...
The Internet has been a social medium since
before it was the Internet. 1970 or so. Perhaps
more accurate (sorry, less pithy):
"The Internet became a more widely-available social medium ..."
The cost for group forming is falling dramatically ...
The cost fell dramatically as soon as USENET became popular
enough; for me, that was in the early 1980's.
Until the mid-1990's there was a de facto filter involved,
where the set of people you might contact electronically
was less commercially oriented (commercial use
was prohibited on the ARPAnet and early Internet),
more technology-oriented,
and more intelligent (more likely
to be college-educated or currently in college)
than the average person.
Now, there is the "Eternal September".
In fact, for my money, this wider availability of the Internet
raises the cost of forming effective groups, because of the
loss of that filtering effect. For many people, for example,
this destroyed USENET's usefulness.
Chuqui writes on somewhat related issues
here.
The greatest risk to security is yourself —
— if you buy or run insecure, virus-prone
software. (Sorry, cheap shot.)
6:45:06 PM
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