Are “Online Conversations” Really Conversations?December 1st, 2008 View Comments |
Kicked off in my mind by a post by Scoble on Friendfeed…
Are “online conversations” really conversations?
We talk and listen, but do we process and interpret?
- We have a multitude of tools to create output and start discussions, and because creating and distributing content has become incredibly easy and cheap, we’ve inundated ourselves with information.
- We’re starting to create the tools to listen to, search through and filter the output.
Friendfeed was one of the first services that created easy ways for people to aggregate their “personal content” distributed across multiple web services.
Backtype is one of my favorite new services on the web, because by aggregating people and their comments scattered over the web they create very powerful ways to find, track and search through interesting people and valuable discussions. [1]
Bryan Landers recently pointed out PeopleBrowsr as a “dashboard for social media junkies … to cover input and output”. Robert Scoble provides a good overview in this video, in which he randomly highlights me during his demonstration of PeopleBrowsr. [2]
But it’s just a start.
- Have we figured out to process everything?
Are we truly listening, or are we just hearing?
Tracking and combining our daily disaggregated, multiple-channel, asynchronous conversations with different people and groups is difficult enough for any web service.
But where is the tool that listens to all the content and picks out what is most important and why?
Where is the service that picks out interesting and valuable posts and comments on similar topics and links together the conversations?
Where is the tool that extracts meaning and not just knowledge?
We’re a knowledge culture; in our race to create and acquire knowledge we’ve forgotten the meaning and power of wisdom.
Perhaps it’s impossible to create a web service to extract meaning and create wisdom; perhaps that’s why we need people and not just algorithms. Perhaps that’s why we still need to connect with individuals and not just groups.
That’s why we follow people, right? That’s why “social media” is really just “personal media”, right? That’s why even though blogging has changed, it will never die, right?
—
[1] Are you worried about your “ephemeral conversations” being recorded and stored forever? Bruce Schneier [via Noah Brier] points that maybe we should consider more carefully what we’re creating and how we treat it.
[2] Really random, and yet meaningless. Start the video at around 9 minutes 8 seconds if you just want to see the demonstration using my “web presence”.
(UPDATED 12/2: Removed embedded video. Click here to watch the video on Kyte TV.
December 2nd, 2008 at 04:29
Great post and thanks for the kind words. While it's fairly easy to search for information on the web, I'd agree that it's difficult to derive meaning, or as I like to put it, insight:
Content => Information => Knowledge => Insight
December 2nd, 2008 at 04:29
Great post and thanks for the kind words. While it's fairly easy to search for information on the web, I'd agree that it's difficult to derive meaning, or as I like to put it, insight:
Content => Information => Knowledge => Insight
December 2nd, 2008 at 04:45
Most of the web (data, people, services and focus) only takes us so far on that path from content to insight.
The interesting thing is that the path to wisdom and knowledge are often very different; not to be overly mystical, but our over-focus on knowledge might hinder our ability to derive, recognize and use wisdom.
This isn't an esoteric debate, either; a great company, startup, product or person uses wisdom and knowledge (separately, differently and together) every day to create and deliver solutions.
December 2nd, 2008 at 04:45
Most of the web (data, people, services and focus) only takes us so far on that path from content to insight.
The interesting thing is that the path to wisdom and knowledge are often very different; not to be overly mystical, but our over-focus on knowledge might hinder our ability to derive, recognize and use wisdom.
This isn't an esoteric debate, either; a great company, startup, product or person uses wisdom and knowledge (separately, differently and together) every day to create and deliver solutions.
December 2nd, 2008 at 06:23
@tdavidson Are “Online Conversations” Really Conversations? http://bit.ly/DjP9
December 2nd, 2008 at 14:01
Is it the role of web services to provide insight to users? After all, it will always be a user's actions that reveal information that can lead to insight. An SMS message can be unchecked, a blog post can be left unread…even a flashing billboard can technically be ignored. So, if it is the power of discovery must be wielded by the discoverer, the best the web can do is make discovering value easier/faster/more efficient.
Services like Backtype and Disqus do that with blog comments. FriendFeed does this by allowing users to create context and then filter content through those channels (context = who you follow, lists around topics, grouping related content such as tweets and blog posts…).
Perhaps consider whether information relayed in face-to-face human conversations are always processed and interpreted. My vote is hell no!!! The web certainly can exacerbate the problem of miscommunication – look no further than how much humans communicate in body language and facial expression. No solution I have seen, such as emoticons, can make up for that loss of information.
But my point is: why should we expect more from people online when there is more content than anyone can consume and the means of communication excludes a large percentage of the potential of human expression?!
I'm comfortable with the idea that some information is valuable enough for me to process and interpret, while some information is just “heard” and either stored away for later reference or quickly forgotten.
December 2nd, 2008 at 14:01
Is it the role of web services to provide insight to users? After all, it will always be a user's actions that reveal information that can lead to insight. An SMS message can be unchecked, a blog post can be left unread…even a flashing billboard can technically be ignored. So, if the power of discovery must be wielded by the discoverer, the best the web can do is make discovering value easier/faster/more efficient.
Services like Backtype and Disqus do that with blog comments. FriendFeed does this by allowing users to create context and then filter content through those channels (context = who you follow, lists around topics, grouping related content such as tweets and blog posts…).
Perhaps consider whether information relayed in face-to-face human conversations are always processed and interpreted. My vote is hell no!!! The web certainly can exacerbate the problem of miscommunication – look no further than how much humans communicate in body language and facial expression. No solution I have seen, such as emoticons, can make up for that loss of information.
But my point is: why should we expect more from people online when there is more content than anyone can consume and the means of communication excludes a large percentage of the potential of human expression?!
I'm comfortable with the idea that some information is valuable enough for me to process and interpret, while some information is just “heard” and either stored away for later reference or quickly forgotten.
December 2nd, 2008 at 14:49
The right tools, filtering, etc can take users from information to insight. And I think that's what Taylor was getting at. Content is abundant, etc, so now value will come from tools that allow people to examine and filter that data.
I don't expect more from people online — I expect more from web services.
December 2nd, 2008 at 14:49
The right tools, filtering, etc can take users from information to insight. And I think that's what Taylor was getting at. Content is abundant, etc, so now value will come from tools that allow people to examine and filter that data.
I don't expect more from people online — I expect more from web services.
December 2nd, 2008 at 15:38
Hell yes on tools filtering and revealing more value – lots of innovation left to be had there, and BackType is right in there with that battle
I guess I'm wondering about the inability of any web service to flip that switch in someone's brain that is insight. Teachers cannot learn for students…each person must learn for themselves and there's no matrix-style data dump where you wake up and go, “I can fly a helicopter now!” In that way, no online tool, no matter how well presented with context, supporting information, delivered at an appropriate time, can do the actual processing that Taylor mentions.
Whether or not social media communication counts as a valid conversation, I still find it exciting when I get a response from a tweet, blog post, or comment! It's a little glimpse into the power and potential of these tools.
December 2nd, 2008 at 15:38
Hell yes on tools filtering and revealing more value – lots of innovation left to be had there, and BackType is right in there with that battle
I guess I'm wondering about the inability of any web service to flip that switch in someone's brain that is insight. Teachers cannot learn for students…each person must learn for themselves and there's no matrix-style data dump where you wake up and go, “I can fly a helicopter now!” In that way, no online tool, no matter how well presented with context, supporting information, delivered at an appropriate time, can do the actual processing that Taylor mentions.
Whether or not social media communication counts as a valid conversation, I still find it exciting when I get a response from a tweet, blog post, or comment! It's a little glimpse into the power and potential of these tools.
December 2nd, 2008 at 23:03
Chris: I definitely expect more from web services… I'm not expecting artificial intelligence, but I do believe we can develop web services that help us think and make decisions with less active, synchronous effort from us. If we pay attention to how we think and process information (and context) as humans, then perhaps we can structure web applications and data flows to really help us understand and make decisions easier, faster and with more confidence.
I hope…
December 2nd, 2008 at 23:03
Chris: I definitely expect more from web services… I'm not expecting artificial intelligence, but I do believe we can develop web services that help us think and make decisions with less active, synchronous effort from us. If we pay attention to how we think and process information (and context) as humans, then perhaps we can structure web applications and data flows to really help us understand and make decisions easier, faster and with more confidence.
I hope…
December 2nd, 2008 at 23:12
Bryan: you raise a couple really interesting points that I probably wasn't fully considering when I wrote the post…
- I actually have a draft post on the exact topic of the reduced contextual information we lose when we communicate on the web: as we've discussed before, emoticons are still a pretty limited method for communicating meta-information.
I would love to see people's furrowed brows, quizzical looks and disdainful shakes of the head when they read my posts
We use the easiest tools of communication not because they're the most powerful, but because they're the easiest, the cheapest, the most available, the least costly for us; not the most powerful way to deliver our messages.
I expect less from communicating with people online…
- Can any web service flip the switch to create insight? With the right tools and usage flow to create the necessary environment and “backgrond” for a person, they can help; but I'll agree that it still takes the person to flip the switch themselves.
Can any web service flip the switch to create wisdom? I don't think so.
And that's the real issue: because we focus on knowledge, do we neglect the power of wisdom? Are we becoming less wise as a society because we only focus on storing facts and data? Open for thoughts…
December 2nd, 2008 at 23:12
Bryan: you raise a couple really interesting points that I probably wasn't fully considering when I wrote the post…
- I actually have a draft post on the exact topic of the reduced contextual information we lose when we communicate on the web: as we've discussed before, emoticons are still a pretty limited method for communicating meta-information.
I would love to see people's furrowed brows, quizzical looks and disdainful shakes of the head when they read my posts
We use the easiest tools of communication not because they're the most powerful, but because they're the easiest, the cheapest, the most available, the least costly for us; not the most powerful way to deliver our messages.
I expect less from communicating with people online…
- Can any web service flip the switch to create insight? With the right tools and usage flow to create the necessary environment and “backgrond” for a person, they can help; but I'll agree that it still takes the person to flip the switch themselves.
Can any web service flip the switch to create wisdom? I don't think so.
And that's the real issue: because we focus on knowledge, do we neglect the power of wisdom? Are we becoming less wise as a society because we only focus on storing facts and data? Open for thoughts…
December 3rd, 2008 at 00:20
Hmm…great questions! I'd like to think the verdict is still out on this because in terms of human history, the web as we've come to know and love it is still brand spanking new! Are you thinking American society? We surely have more opportunity to pursue wisdom than many societies currently in existence (and more wisdom to gain being younger than many). My hope is that easier storage of facts and data will accord people more time to think and create. Seems to be working for you
December 3rd, 2008 at 00:20
Hmm…great questions! I'd like to think the verdict is still out on this because in terms of human history, the web as we've come to know and love it is still brand spanking new! Are you thinking American society? We surely have more opportunity to pursue wisdom than many societies currently in existence (and more wisdom to gain being younger than many). My hope is that easier storage of facts and data will accord people more time to think and create. Seems to be working for you
May 14th, 2009 at 16:18
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