Is it Just Me?

Or is this a funny headline? I thought I was on the Onion for a second.

In other news, beer makers predict that people will drink a lot of beer this summer, and umbrella makers predict a very wet year.

Max: a Holiday Tragedy Comes to the Court of Public Opinion

Our friends the Cohns have two little girls, Emma and Olivia, who are friends with Cassidy and Delaney. The Cohns took Max, their family dog, to the local PetSmart just before Christmas to get him groomed for their holiday photos. Somehow Max managed to escape from the grooming area, made it through a series of open doors and apparently tried to find his way home. Tragically, he was hit by a car and killed before he made it.

I only met Max a few times, but from the first time I met him at one of Cassidy and Emma’s soccer games, I knew he was a cool dog. He was one of those special dogs that you just know is good and loyal and gentle from the first minute you know him. He was our friend, and we are saddened by his loss. He was a member of the Cohns’ family. The past few weeks have been really hard for Emma and Olivia.

When the Cohns contacted Petsmart to find out how Max managed to get away and what PetSmart intended to do about it, they found PetSmart’s answers very troubling:

“They said we looked up the value of your dog on the Internet, we want to give $600,” Keith Cohn told the local ABC station, who did a story on Max’s death. He repeated that to me, and said he is having a hard time getting any substantive answers from PetSmart. As a result, the Cohns have started a web page in memory of Max, and to speak out about this horrible incident.

As is often the case, much of the best commentary and discussion can be found in the comments to the ABC story and the comments on the Cohns’ web site. There are comments blaming and defending PetSmart. There are comments by others who say they have had bad experiences at Petsmart and other groomers. There are legal arguments, moral arguments and arguments just for the sake of arguing. Amid all the hue and cry, however, remain two little girls who grieve for their dog.

Without question, this should not have happened. The problem, of course, is that now that it has, what should be done about it? Keith told me he wants PetSmart to enact and follow policies that will prevent this from happening to someone else. He also wants PetSmart to pay monetary compensation, to his family and/or an animal shelter, to put a little bite in the policies and to ensure that such policies are followed. PetSmart probably just wants all of this to go away and, perhaps, to avoid setting a precedent that might be be invoked by other aggrieved pet owners.

There will be no happy ending to this story. Max is gone, and all the apologies and policies in the world won’t bring him back. All that is left is to seek a solution that is acceptable to both parties. Again, no one will walk away from this feeling good. The trick will be to craft a resolution that makes it less bad.

For that to happen, the parties need to talk. Not about legalities. Not even about moralities. About responsibility, reason and, ultimately, reconciliation. Honor should be paid to Max’s memory and to the empty place his loss created in the Cohns’ house and in their hearts. In my mind, it’s not about the money. Money is simply, for better or worse, the stand-in for things taken that cannot be replaced.

What is already an emotionally charged situation has been further complicated by a lack of direct, honest and sincere communication. In my opinion, when PetSmart offered the Cohns a paltry $600 for the loss of their family pet under such tragic, and preventable, circumstances, it almost guaranteed that the dispute, along with the emotions, would escalate. Money is not going to bring Max back, but discounting his value after looking on the Internet for puppy prices is not my idea of reaching out. One bad offer begets another, and the resolution gap begins to widen.

Unlike in days past, when an angry customer could only file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau and hope, the Internet age allows anyone with a computer to bring their complaint to the court of public opinion. Thomas Hawk did it when he had a bad experience with a camera store. Jeff Jarvis took on Dell. There have been others, and there will be more.

Now it may be PetSmart’s turn in the people’s court.

I don’t know what ought to happen in this case. Naturally, people will align along legal and moral grounds. Perhaps that’s inevitable. I just know that many people love their pets dearly and the loss of a pet is a tragic event that transcends legal and moral responsibility.

As an aside, while I am an animal rights supporter, I personally discount just about everything that originates from PETA, including the comments to the above pages that reference PETA. In my opinion, PETA has become so radically bound to its philosophical position that it has lost the ability to convince the undecided. I feel the same way about the political parties, but that’s a topic for another day.

There’s nothing anyone can do to bring Max back, but I believe the only chance to achieve any sort of closure and reconciliation is through open and honest communication. Silence and posturing only amplify the problem when people need to hear from you.

People like two little girls who miss their dog.

Technorati Tags: pets

Merry Christmas

countrychristmas

Oh, come, all ye faithful,
Joyful and triumphant!
Oh, come ye, oh, come ye to Bethlehem;
Come and behold him
Born the king of angels:
Oh, come, let us adore him,
Oh, come, let us adore him,
Oh, come, let us adore him,
Christ the Lord.

Evening Reading: 12/19/07

Cassidy, my 9 year old, uses only Ask.com for her internet school research. I asked her why, and she said that’s what they use at school. I was surprised that Google wasn’t her search engine of choice. My search engine evolution went like this: Alta Vista (seems to be still online) to Hotbot (looks dead to me) to Google.

Amy Gahran has a good post on how and why to start blogging. There are so many reasons people blog. Many of them are designed, directly or indirectly, around monetary goals. Those blogs generally bore me, because it’s so easy to spot the true motive. If you have a financial motive, you must do two things: be honest about it and give people something of value to make it worth their while to visit your blog. If you’re blogging for other reasons, bless your heart. In that case, just pick something you care about and write passionately. Don’t be afraid to ask established bloggers for help. It’s not that hard to have an active and reasonably popular blog. It only gets screwed up when you decide you’re a blog star or make it all about money. Basically, blogs are like email. Lots of them are spam, lots of them are trying to give you information you don’t need or want, and some of them are fun and informative.

In related news, Wired has 10 tips for new bloggers. I agree with all but 1 and 9.

Claus Valca on Firefox 3.0 and, perhaps, my new feed reader. Download Squad has more. Based on Claus’ post, I am going to try NewsFox.

Needlepoint this truism by Doc Searls and put in on your wall: “today’s ‘social networks’ look to me like yesterday’s online services.” Amen: “I wonder if it pisses Yahoo off that Myspace has taken over the internet with what is, in large part, merely an updated version of Geocities- something that Yahoo had a decade ago?”

Richard Querin on the “ironically named” Facebook Funwall. I realize that no one other than Doc and Richard agrees with me, but I just do not understand the Facebook hysteria. Now if I owned Facebook and was the one making money off all these fence painters, then I would be hysterical.

Bookmark this link: Dwight tells you how to solve the extremely frustrating and reoccurring “my computers can’t see each other” network problem. Now if someone would just tell me how to once and for all get rid of password protected sharing in Vista…

Hear Ya has the best records of 2007, with MP3’s. Good list.

Join us in 40 minutes and help us record our next podcast live in Second Life.

Technorati Tags: kents news

Podcasting Live in Second Life

Just when I thought it could never happen, Dave and Mike have enticed me back into Second Life, this time to record an episode of our Extraordinary Everyday Lives Show from Second Life. Please accept this invitation to join us at 10:00 PM, central time (8:00 PM SL time), Wednesday, December 19. Dave has more details.

Here’s the SLURL for the location. Come by and participate, or just watch. It’s up to you.

As I have noted before, I relinquished my Second Life account months ago, having become generally bored with the experience. But after talking to Dave and Mike about their recent experiences in Second Life, I was beginning to wonder if I had been hasty in my decision. When we decided to podcast from Second Life, I decided to give it another whirl. I met up with Dave last night, and I have to say that the experience in general seems faster and smoother. And the voice chat works really well.

My Second Life name is Times Short, and I hope to see you in world tomorrow night.

Technorati Tags: podcasting, second life

Blessed are Those Who are Unoffended

easily offended It’s no secret that I’m no fan of Mike Arrington. I’ve been critical of him on several occasions, generally about some online temper tantrum he is having over some slight or perceived slight. But this latest brouhaha over his response to a blog comment is ridiculous. Some of it is, as usual, Mike’s own doing- gratuitously using the F word in a comment is unnecessary and reflects very poorly on Mike. In some alternate universe somewhere, Mike didn’t capture lightning in a bottle with TechCruch and has been forced to learn how to act like a grownup.

But that’s not my point today.

I continue to be amazed over the number of people who seem to be standing around impatiently waiting for something to become outraged about. Everyone’s a dealer, just waiting to toss out a winning (or losing) card.

First, a little background. I don’t know anything about Lane Hartwell, and no one but her knows what’s truly inside her head with respect to the use of her photo in the Richter Scales “Here Comes Another Bubble” video. Having said that, it seems a bit much to wage an offensive over the use of an image in a video, or two or three. I certainly wouldn’t do that if one of my songs got sampled, but we have to assume she is genuinely concerned about her rights and not just after the mountain of publicity this issue has received. What is without question is that people have a right, and should be expected, to question her decision and argue contrary positions. Without going into the boring legalities of it all, the various commenters are basically arguing one of two points: what she ought to do or what constitutes fair use. The point is that there are logical and likely heartfelt arguments on both sides of the debate.

So amid all the flutter and sway, Mike crosses paths with Shelley Powers. Rightly or wrongly, Mike thinks Shelley (and I quote) “is a person who trolls TechCrunch about once per week accusing me of all sort of things, very often of being sexist. In my opinion she shifts her opinions regularly on issues to ensure that she supports the woman in any dispute.” I have no gripe with Shelley and I have no idea whether she’s mean to Mike or not. Though I appreciate the monumental irony in the mere asking of that question, it doesn’t really matter. Mike can think whatever he wants, including this (and again I quote):

Lane’s attorney is abusing the DMCA for his/her own goals. And copyright has nothing to do with “giving credit.” It has to do with being forced to license work unless it falls under fair use, which this clearly does. *** But since Lane is a woman, it really doesn’t matter what she did as far as you are concerned. She’s a woman, so she’s right.

It seems, however, that some people (exactly how many is open to debate) have taken up torches and want to burn Mike at the stake and TechCrunch to the ground in the name of gender equality or some other noble cause. Only that’s neither equality-producing nor noble, by any definition I’ve ever heard. It’s just another knee-jerk reaction that will succeed only in conscripting the gender issue to some lesser purpose- publicity and traffic perhaps? Ego-building? The need for conflict?

This far too common rabid, demonizing, verbal vigilante reaction is the very reason I am profoundly apolitical and go out of my way to avoid political discussion. Staunch Democrats and Republicans are so bound to their spoon-fed positions and so focused on demonizing the other party that it is impossible to have a meaningful debate on any political issue. No wonder voter turnout is so low. Both sides have lost credibility with the great middle. When I read the so-called discussion surrounding Mike’s statement, I don’t see rational discussion. I see name calling and conclusion jumping on both sides, along with a few opportunists along for the attention ride.

I’m all about political correctness. But when someone – even someone as self-absorbed as Mike Arrington – can’t engage in a spirited debate without getting branded a sexist (or more accurately, accused of branding someone else one), we have gone too far. When people mine prose for flammable content at the expense of addressing the issue, we have lost our way. If all we do is move from one verbal skirmish to another, we are not making progress. Mike tries to paint himself as the victim here, but he’s not. Progress and the chance for understanding are the victims. The wasted minutes of those who have to read all the inimical words to find the insightful ones are collateral damage.

When people get offended because someone wishes them a Merry Christmas or Happy Hanukkah or Blessed Ramadan, we’ve gone too far. At some point, we have to leave the semantics aside and deal with the important stuff that lies beneath. When someone takes the time to wish me happiness at a time that’s important to him or her, I consider it a great honor. It’s not whether I happen to celebrate the same holiday that matters. It’s the gesture.

So if Mike thinks that someone is biased towards women, why isn’t that a valid arguing point, the same way the fact that someone may be biased against women is, and should be, fair game? All the political correctness in the world shouldn’t support a position that you can have it both ways. Rather than vilify Mike for making that point, show him where he’s wrong. Either because his premise is flawed or because it doesn’t matter if it isn’t.

Shelley herself, who continues to address the real issue as opposed to the manufactured one as the world around her descends into chaos, notes the fact that people rushed in to spout their opinions without taking the time to look at the underlying issue:

My name is Shelley Powers. I have a weblog, Burningbird. I’ve weblogged for seven years. I write regularly on issues important to women.

I am a real person, though Michael has done his best to dehumanize me. What I don’t understand is why one of you didn’t think to ask him who I really am. You just all gave your opinions.

Why can’t we work as hard at not being offended as some people do to be offended? Are our morals, philosophies and opinions so fragile that disagreement, even ridicule, can shake them? Mine aren’t. And I suspect yours aren’t either. And if we really want to reach out to people and show them that we’re right, we have to do two things: stop yelling at them and give them the opportunity to change our minds.

Sometimes we need to just get over it. Anybody with me?

Evening Reading: 12/15/07

Dave Winer on Twitter outages: “it’s not good enough when the service takes a 12-hour break while many of the humans that depend on it are awake and working.” Note to Dave: Twitter not “a basic form of communication” for anyone who has any semblance of a normal life. Surely, we can manage to get along for 12 hours without knowing what someone across the country had for lunch. And if we have to know, can’t we just call them (you know, on a telephone) and ask them? Secondly, I think Dave’s definition of “working” is different than mine, if the absence of Twitter adversely affects his ability to work. Why can’t we use tech to improve our lives without trying to turn it into something bigger than it is? I know the answer to that, actually.

While I am at it, can we please stop with the posts proclaiming that something is dead just to get more traffic. It would be a tragedy to let Google destroy Wikipedia, all in the name of collecting more of our data and tossing more ads in our face. Everyone without skin in the game should rally together to make sure that doesn’t happen. TDavid has some thoughts on it.

Mashable reports that EMI will cut funding to the RIAA. That’s a good start.

Steve Spaulding has his list of the best videos of 2007. Here’s mine. I’ve heard a lot of music, and this is the best cover I have heard. Ever. You have to watch the whole thing to get to the smoking guitar work. Someone’s going to point out that is was shot in 2006, but it was uploaded in 2007.

I was off the grid, but for those who missed it, Edgeio has ironically jumped into the deal pool. There is zero money in embedding classified ads in social networks, for crying out loud. eBay is more reliable, more efficient and simply easier. If Yahoo and Amazon can’t put a dent in eBay, isn’t it folly to think a few bloggers will? Even the anti-establishment types (among others) have Craigslist.

My kids and I watched and enjoyed every episode of Kid Nation. TVSquad has the scoop on the season finale.

Frank Paynter found a hilarious and accurate video about Bubble 2.0 and blogging.

Technorati Tags: kents news

Feeds, Readers and Reading and Open Gates

Now that I have finished my Swivel Feeds experiment (look for the OPML file shortly), I can get back to reading (or not) and writing (or not) blogs that genuinely interest me. The main thing I learned from my Swivel Feeds experience is that:

(a) there are a lot of good writers out there who don’t show up on Techmeme;

(b) there are a lot a bad writers out there, some of whom don’t show up on Techmeme; and

In other words, I find too many blogs saying slightly different versions of the same thing. Which means that, for me, the goodness or badness of a blog comes down to the interestingness of the blogger. Not so much the network, formal or not, surrounding such writer. And I still find most of the “social” networks to be nothing but billboards for whatever the user is selling- be it a personal brand or a page full of AdSense. I also question how many “networkers” are really looking for friends as opposed to leads of one sort or another.

I also know that I cannot keep up with hundreds of feeds.

So where does that lead me?

First, it led me to delete about 140 blogs from my personal reading list. Not because I find no value in 139 of those blogs (I admit that I find no value in the cats), but because if I see hundreds of unread blogs in my reader, I get either discouraged or pissed off (depending on my karma level) and close the application. I don’t want 500 people to talk at me at a party (I say “at me” intentionally, because like most cocktail party banter, the blogosphere is largely un-conversational). And I don’t want 500 people to talk at me when I fire up my computer. All of this makes me very grateful to Dave and Mike for letting me co-host the podcast so I can keep some virtual connection to the void which binds while we wait for the lions, tigers and bears to show themselves. Yes, I finished all the Hyperion books, and I see entire religions, past, present and future, in those words. If I win the lottery before I forget about them, I’ll probably devote all my time to talking about those books and the lessons therein.

Here’s the latest podcast.

Bloglines is still slow and unreliable. I tried hard (for the third time) to use Google Reader, but I can’t. I hate Google Reader. In fact, I could write 1000 pages on how much I dislike the interface. So for now the shitty application I know is better than the shitty one I don’t.

Last but not least, I also have to figure out what to blog about. My current thinking is to just go feral and start typing whatever pops into my head. One way or another, that will solve any readership issues. In that regard, why it is so freaking hard for Gene, Gene the Dancing Machine to lock the gate when he leaves? A wide open gate is much worse than no fence at all. Now, I get to venture out in the wet and cold to round up animals and kids, none of whom will willingly walk back through the gate. Gene, if by some miracle you read this, tell your guys to get off the tractor and lock the damn gate when they leave.

I am enjoying Pownce. I like the music sharing feature.

It doesn’t yet feel like Christmas to me. We’re getting our tree tomorrow, so hopefully that will help.

Here’s the best song I heard for the first time in 2007. Go buy the record, it’s really good. You can download it DRM-free via Amazon.

I’ve got to stop now and go deal with that damn gate.

Technorati Tags: blogging, feed readers, gates, boredom

Evening Reading: 11/20/07

I got the evaluation summaries today from a recent speech at a conference here in Houston. My favorite evaluation of all time: “Scary, country boy lawyer. But I will read every word he writes.” I don’t know if that’s a slam, a compliment or both, but I wish I could change the name plate on my office door from “Kent Newsome” to “Scary Country Boy Lawyer.” Maybe I’ll legally change my name.

I just came across a recent concert film of REM on DirecTV’s channel T101. They still rock. Check it out. It’s free.

Pandora added classical music to its library. That’s too bad. I hate classical music. And I rarely use the word hate.

Lifehacker has started a series on digital photography. More than just the basics you already know. Looks very promising.

Even better, WikiHow has a tutorial on folding a towel elephant. I’m going to put one in my kids’ bathroom and see if they notice.

Cracked has 9 words that don’t mean what you think they do. I had non-plussed backwards.

Farmgate, one of my daily reads, has an agricultural forecast for 2008. Generally good news. Need more farming karma? Granny J has tractors. I could drive a tractor well before I ever tried to drive a car.

Newsome.Org got linked in a CBS story about keeping teens safe online.

Steve Spaulding does Zager and Evans, with a little help from the Discovery Channel.

Up until I read this, I didn’t care a whit about the writer’s strike. If I need to go somewhere and picket to get one last ride with the best show (recently) on television, then picketing I will go. On a happier note, I just noticed that Love American Style, one of my favorite shows when I was a kid, is out on DVD. I have Disc 1 in my queue.

I’m going to do the wrap-up for my swivel feeds experiment over the long weekend. And then I am going to unsubscribe to a lot of blogs.

Ayelet on one of the reasons I am not drinking the social network kool-aid. There is far too much self-promotion in these social networks (and Twitter), and far too little value or entertainment. There are too many different motivations for social networking, many of which are at cross purposes.

On the other hand, if you need a good reason to join Pownce, meet Mustard Empire. He/she has single handedly revived my long buried and presumed dead interest in hip hop. This song by the Winnie Coopers (great name) is a 10+.

Chris Brogan on passion in personal branding. I’ve been including personal branding concepts in almost all of my recent conference speeches. Even the scary country boy lawyer one.

PulverTV (sorry, I don’t do the non-initial caps thing unless I’m talking about eBay or an i something) looks very interesting. I’d love to do some content for it, if I had more time. Somebody in a comment to Jeff’s post said “live is where it’s at.” Personally, I don’t believe that’s true. I think interesting and archivable is where it’s at. Neither of those require, and one is inconsistent with, live. Live is hard for professionals. It’s nearly impossible for the rest of us.

What I’d rather have than either an eBook reader or an iPod Touchbook: a nice, solid paperback of another installment in the Hyperion series. I’m well into the fourth and final book, and I think it may be the greatest series of books since the Lord of the Rings. Nobody other than hard-core gadget freaks wants to read books on an eBook reader or an iSomething. Could we possibly get any nerdier?

Seth has an interesting twist on the blogosphere caste system. I don’t have any paid links. The A-Listers won’t have anything to do with me. And I think the entire SEO thing is somewhere between sad and irritating. In fact, I think most of the internet and the entire blogosphere are rapidly disintegrating into a scene from Escape from New York. Paging Snake Plissken.

Technorati Tags: kents news

Why Grown-ups Don’t Care About Social Networking

If some alien traveler landed at an intersection in any decent-sized town in America, wandered into any of the four Starbucks there, borrowed the barista’s laptop to tap into the internet and read the first six blogs he came across, he would instantly conclude that social networking is more important to Americans than work, family, religion, sports and all three Elvises combined.

But like the blind fellow who happens to grab the elephant’s tail, he wouldn’t have the whole picture.

Steve Rubel says the portals – AOL (does it even exist anymore), Yahoo, Google and Windows Live (OK, that one’s a stretch) – will win the social networking wars. I’m not sure what that means, other than they will give away more stuff for free to more non-paying customers, but I digress. Steve says, correctly, that every site on the net is adding social networking features. That’s because 99% of the internet is one giant, reactive momentum play, but I digress again. Clearly, every site in the world is trying to become Facebook Jr., which from a design and usability perspective is like every NFL team trying to become the Dolphins. But since the entirety of Web 2.0 is ad-based, all that matters is where the herd is grazing at any given moment. Steve’s point is that we jump frog-like from one social networking site to the next, but rely on the trusty old portals to manage our online experience. I tend to agree with that, for a couple of reasons. One, my personal experience. I use My Yahoo to get my news, weather and sports and my personal portal to manage my web surfing and research. Two, logic (a concept rarely featured in the Web 2.0 mania). Everyone who fires up a web browser has to start somewhere, including the billions who have never heard of Bebo.

I think there is an implied assumption in Steve’s post that people want more data, information and interaction, when I believe most working adults want less. But between whatever social application is plastered all over Mashable and the old, boring, Web 1.0-associated portals, the portals will always have the superior numbers. Some say that the teens of today will bring the Facebooks of tomorrow to main street and corporate America. I don’t think so. When those teens get kicked out of the nest, get a job or two and a family of their own to worry about, keeping up with what some online “friends” they’ve never met had for dinner is going to lose its place in the sphere of concern. A lot of younger guys I know used to have MySpace and Facebook pages. Few use them anymore. My theory, which I can’t footnote with empirical data, is that they used the social networking sites primarily as a means to meet and advertise themselves to girls. Once they got jobs, wives and joined the rat race, they no longer had a need for the new-personals service those sites provided.

Now comes Stowe Boyd, who’s selling something, although what it is isn’t exactly clear (“As we catapult headlong into a social revolution…”). Stowe says that Steve is wrong. He says because the newspapers and magazines didn’t own Web 1.0, it’s wrong to think the dusty old portal sites will own Web 2+. Maybe, but old media didn’t own Web 1.0 because they threw it in the dumpster, thinking it was of little value. Now that all of those ad dollars that used to support so many more magazines and newspapers have migrated to the web, you can be sure old media will follow them like cavemen followed wooley mammoths- and likely with the same result. If there was any doubt of that before yesterday, the crumbling of the Wall dispelled it.

Sure, the distribution of information changes reasonably fast. Sure, a lot of the social networking slag tossed up by web sites will be poorly thought out and terribly executed. But the herd that Stowe is tracking is the loud but smallish herd of technophiles and prospectors. The ever increasing number of substantially similar social networking sites and the chaotic bloat at the hands of unnecessary features will drive the larger herd – those billions of users who don’t care what song you’re listening to – back to places they know. Places where the idea is to manage your information, not merely to open your online experience to the unfiltered, irrelevant and often adolescent mosh pit. Adults, both today’s and tomorrow’s, want less data. Not more. The assumption that people want more is the biggest fallacy of the Web 2.0 mania.

Ask yourself how many mid and senior management people in corporate America are actively using Facebook or MySpace as their primary online management tool. For one thing, those sites are blocked at many companies. For another, there are better alternatives. More does not always translate to better. Sure, there are corporate Facebook users. But compared to the millions of corporate users who click over to Yahoo every morning to read their news or get stock quotes, the number would surely seem miniscule. Remove the tech industry, the marketing industry, the recruiters and those with skin in the game from the list, and it becomes even shorter. LinkedIn has some corporate mindshare, but anyone who’s paying attention can tell that, for better or worse, LinkedIn is very different from MySpace. I suspect it is also much less sticky, which is why its greater utility plays second fiddle to Facebook’s greater page views. The fact that LinkedIn can’t decide if it wants to be a roadmap or a destination at least gives it the chance to make the correct decision.

Another factor? Portals make it easy to aggregate your data and your communications. No need to install a widget to get the weather if it’s already there on your My Yahoo page.

I think Stowe is spot-on about one thing:

The network — the Web — belongs to us, the indigenous people of the Web: the Edglings.

That’s undoubtedly true. And while there are other issues for the Edglings – such as the conscription of their creation by others for a profit – there is a segment of the population that will never return to AOL. Just like there is a segment of the population that thinks using Linux is more efficient than using Windows. But those folks will always be in the minority numbers wise. And many of them will capitulate to the inevitability of Windows as they get older and busier. Much like many of them will capitulate to a portal when they want to stem the flow of information they suddenly discover they don’t really need.

That poor alien sitting in Starbucks, reading those blogs and wondering why all those people sitting around talking on their iPhones aren’t at work may conclude that Facebook is the future. But it’s not. It’s just the present. For a loud but mobile herd.

Technorati Tags: social networks, facebook, web 2.0