If we're in a snack culture today's post is...Well it's more than a tic-tac but maybe not reaching the hot pocket level. Better to keep quiet and be thought a fool...Than blog and remove all doubt.  That may explain the lack of posts lately.

 I've been exposed to so many ideas in the last few days with regards to  the argument, you can call it a debate, re what social media is, and  since I've been trying to nail that particular trifle to the wall too  I think I'm going to annoy  and evade "It's what ever you say it is". Ok I can do better.  

So far I like this take on comment five , From Ian Kennedy 

 
"So while your initial question and my response is just plain ol’ media, the process of refinement and amplification around what was said and the metadata that is created is what makes this media “social.”

I've always thought it to be .. that which I can affect a change in the course of the discussion/artifact ,  whether by creating it or being able to append, modify  or repurpose it within my own work  I.e basically being   able to  "bump back"  Obviously there's many degrees of this, I'd go as far to say that Talk radio, when done well, has the same spirit though ultimately there' s the FCC to fuck it up.  

 I still have the feeling that co opting  the term to refer to a narrow set of marketing  professionals  re  codifying how to talk at us, rather than with us is leading to the confusion.  Then again you can't have a revolution without having someone to take aim at on the world wide wall . 

I'm going to cannibalize one of my older posts for the rest of this entry which relates to a different clique from the "social" marketers and that's the group most likely  to object to being sold to.

How many examples can you think of where an “all inclusive” group fragments into those carrying out their “approved” vision of inclusion against those they perceive to be dilettantes (utlanning) or even further removed those considered to be ramen (noodle that one, or send requests for an explanation on a (Orson Scott Post) Card**.

Now. .. Wait a minute for that to clique.

Worst of all where in the hierarchy, implied by the question above, will the end users be placed? If the revolution were to be blogged, assuming that the masses can peel themselves away from the E! news and “Poe nog graph ee ” are they ever going to light a Molotov blog trail while conceptually constrained by what the proper “use” for their power should take?

Will the changing of the guard from the old media system of a few gatekeepers to a spaghetti junction of private roads -each extracting a mental toll one elitist comment at a time- lead us anywhere other than into “intellectual” ghettos of like minded individuals?

Attempting to push communities or ideas together into one homogenous, addressable, mass led me to what should have been an obvious discovery. They aren't. Realistically one can't , heck even this example is unlikely, address anything other than the technical community of the "blogosphere" en masse, personally I prefer to call it the mediasphere, any more than you can inform the Internet as a whole. 

Other than a language in common, in the USA you certainly can't guarantee that , there's no community message able to transcend gender,creed,age, economic class and a myriad of other differentiations where blogs be an efficient disseminator of such so trying to organize the same model   times  many doesn't seem to be progress but the repetition of a mistake. Most people don't dislike politicians taking from those they disagree with after all so naturally transferring  "control" a few cubits down the pyramid  looks like a good idea if you happen to be standing there at the time

Once you go beyond the underlying technology or methods of providing the "printing press" is it fair to expect that only uplifting, socially useful or material to the glorification of the press makers be granted access?

Clearly not; otherwise Danielle Steele novels could have never appeared.

Douglas Adams, the most interesting construction of the eponymous DNA, who hailed from Cambridge, UK, had this to say.

“1. Everything that’s already in the world when you’re born is just normal;
2. anything that gets invented between then and before you turn 35 is incredibly exciting and creative and, given opportunity, you can make a career out of it;
3. anything that gets invented after you’re 35 is against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilization as we know it until it’s been around for about ten years when it gradually turns out to be all right really.”

For the vast majority of the public we’re approaching this “procession of the pages” as it relates to the Internet, or at least the masses interaction with it.

The parents of the current working generation are going to adopt the modes of communication their progeny consider exciting tech and that their grandchildren consider life as usual and I'm not sure we need a media priesthood to help that along be they  the technorati or the "social" marketers

**

Hierarchy of Foreignness: Orson Scott Card's Speaker for the dead.

Utlanning, or otherlander
-someone of another city or country
-Swedish word: utlînning [u:tlen:ing] utlînningen utlînningar (noun)
-English translation: foreigner, alien
-Compounds: utlînningslag -en—Aliens' Act
Framling
-"human" but of another world. Someone substantially different than us
-Swedish word: frîmling [fr'em:ling] frîmlingen frîmlingar (noun)
-English translation: stranger, foreigner, alien
-Compounds: frîmling(s)|skap -et—alien status, alienation
Raman
-human but of differing species, someone so different
in concept and idea as to be considered other
-Swedish word: ram [ra:m] ramen ramar (noun)
-English translation: frame / (figuratively "limits, bounds")
-Examples: inom mñjligheternas ram—within the limits of possibility
-Compounds: ram|avtal -et—skeleton (blanket) agreement
Varelse
-alien, no "conversation" is possible, they might be intelligent,
they may be self aware, but we wouldn't know it.
-Swedish word: varelse [v'a:relse] varelsen varelser (noun)
-English translation: being
-Examples: levande varelse—living creature