Experience Before Branding

Jack Vinson tweeted the following Fast Company rave-up of IBM's entry in the Face Share social media ring. It read like the Gulliver's Travels caught in the virtual web of social nets. All those tiny people are Facebook customers -- aahhh, let me cut loose and wait for Jack to seed my next beanstalk venture, please!

All raves aside it was transparently partisan to Big Blue and I too found myself pulled into the story's gravitation. That's not because IBM is inherently better at social nets than Microsoft. Just that they possess and propagate their own homegrown infernos -- the molten core of critical social mass. When Microsoft eats its own dog food often it's been predigested by a beta pedigree behind someone else's pit bull fence. Not IBM:

"IBM's internal network served as both an incubator and torture test for its latest offering."

Of course, just because IBM cultivates its own crash tests doesn't mean that its dummies don't bleed the same R&D reserves as any other experiential wannabe. Whoever wins at Face share will have the ubiquity to melt the word "social" off the future face of software. And why call it software when it's no longer a substitute for firsthand encounters but "the real thing?"

We'll come to know this in time -- not by some IDC forecast or self-selecting straw poll but by the disappearance of brand IBM, Microsoft, Apple, Google, etal. from the face of experience.

Experience Before Branding

Jack Vinson tweeted the following Fast Company rave-up of IBM's entry in the Face Share social media ring. It read like the Gulliver's Travels caught in the virtual web of social nets. All those tiny people are Facebook customers -- aahhh, let me cut loose and wait for Jack to seed my next beanstalk venture, please!

All raves aside it was transparently partisan to Big Blue and I too found myself pulled into the story's gravitation. That's not because IBM is inherently better at social nets than Microsoft. Just that they possess and propagate their own homegrown infernos -- the molten core of critical social mass. When Microsoft eats its own dog food often it's been predigested by a beta pedigree behind someone else's pit bull fence. Not IBM:

"IBM's internal network served as both an incubator and torture test for its latest offering."

Of course, just because IBM cultivates its own crash tests doesn't mean that its dummies don't bleed the same R&D reserves as any other experiential wannabe. Whoever wins at Face share will have the ubiquity to melt the word "social" off the future face of software. And why call it software when it's no longer a substitute for firsthand encounters but "the real thing?"

We'll come to know this in time -- not by some IDC forecast or self-selecting straw poll but by the disappearance of brand IBM, Microsoft, Apple, Google, etal. from the face of experience.

Across the Credabyss

The dark fantasy of an evil twin brother to Facebook may come to lodge inside the inflating vacuum of influences vintage to this post credible century. It may inhabit a place once reserved for reporters who arbitrated once definable and containable questions like:

Can the public handle the truth about...?"

Facial truth may arrive without malevolent intentions. Some may even be noble in their naivete. For instance, it may be a libertarian impulse from the Good List of Craigs. If no one knows what breeds we kennel on the Internet then surely there's a universal understanding that flies under the longest of tails we wave. In the book of Craig, what people do in their uninhibited privacy is not only their own business but endows the publisher with the right of keeping their total headcounts under the roof of a one SF-based Victorian.

It may be the egalitarian bromide of the net neutrality sage who believes that all data packets were created equal under a Constitution that protects free speech by splitting the difference between the right to remain silent and the right to remain anonymous.

It may be a social media partisan who believes that transparency, consensus, and may-the-best-idea win are all wrapped and sealed in the protective popularity of a Survey Monkey referendum.

It most certainly is a loyal Wikipedia correspondent who adheres to the sacred tenets of the ancient disciple scribbles. Thou shalt do no original research (or synthesis of two or more existing ideas) in the unquestioning isolation of their passive voice and their hollow curiosity.

With those seeds in motion is the particle-smashing collision that awaits this doubting world be that surprising? Would we really be spinning off the orbit we're on now to subscribe to a site where:

Alias predators post dubious half-truths that only needs a popular vote to determine how convinced the fence-sitters are that they're getting the whole story.

How would we stop these allegations?

As Andrew Morris-Friedman imagines the only way to lower the temperature without changing the subject is to post even more reprehensible stuff to attract even higher scores. One can't see their accusers unless they suffer the fools of self-effacement. That's how we actually identify our detractors in a world devoid of credibility -- by being our own worst enemies.

Across the Credabyss

The dark fantasy of an evil twin brother to Facebook may come to lodge inside the inflating vacuum of influences vintage to this post credible century. It may inhabit a place once reserved for reporters who arbitrated once definable and containable questions like:

Can the public handle the truth about...?"

Facial truth may arrive without malevolent intentions. Some may even be noble in their naivete. For instance, it may be a libertarian impulse from the Good List of Craigs. If no one knows what breeds we kennel on the Internet then surely there's a universal understanding that flies under the longest of tails we wave. In the book of Craig, what people do in their uninhibited privacy is not only their own business but endows the publisher with the right of keeping their total headcounts under the roof of a one SF-based Victorian.

It may be the egalitarian bromide of the net neutrality sage who believes that all data packets were created equal under a Constitution that protects free speech by splitting the difference between the right to remain silent and the right to remain anonymous.

It may be a social media partisan who believes that transparency, consensus, and may-the-best-idea win are all wrapped and sealed in the protective popularity of a Survey Monkey referendum.

It most certainly is a loyal Wikipedia correspondent who adheres to the sacred tenets of the ancient disciple scribbles. Thou shalt do no original research (or synthesis of two or more existing ideas) in the unquestioning isolation of their passive voice and their hollow curiosity.

With those seeds in motion is the particle-smashing collision that awaits this doubting world be that surprising? Would we really be spinning off the orbit we're on now to subscribe to a site where:

Alias predators post dubious half-truths that only needs a popular vote to determine how convinced the fence-sitters are that they're getting the whole story.

How would we stop these allegations?

As Andrew Morris-Friedman imagines the only way to lower the temperature without changing the subject is to post even more reprehensible stuff to attract even higher scores. One can't see their accusers unless they suffer the fools of self-effacement. That's how we actually identify our detractors in a world devoid of credibility -- by being our own worst enemies.

In-Our-Face Book

The most fundamental disconnect of current state web 2.5 lies between our dual roles as content producers and consumers. It's one thing to shed aliases and handles as fluidly as we're pressed for passwords. It's quite another to be torn between our need for peer approval and self-protection. That's not a minor misalignment. That's a deep and impassable identity crisis. How the two are reconciled is not the next big app. It's the staging ground for the gathering storm perfection of:

* The rise of Facebook
* The fall of journalism
* The abyss of credibility

For the last five years or so we've been feeding the sociable media beast with friend affirmations. We want a sense of belonging, of inclusiveness. But if we pay for that community-building with back-scratches and platitudes that leaves a gaping hole between what we hope to be expressed and what we know to be true. It's not that Facebook praises are empty but enforced by a culture of reciprocal transparency. As much as positive reinforcement is the elixir of choice for self-expression, it leaves us hungry for how others perceive us. It's tone deaf to the indifference of outsiders. Those are the potential employers who background check us out. But they're not looking for suitors, social circles, or listening to our echo chamber of megaphones.

They just want to know they can trust us and can't just take our word for it.

What would happen if none of us were allowed to post to our own social media profiles? Would our friends make up for the shortfall? Could our enemies commit "face crimes" and libel us with half-truths and fabrications? In a regulated web, non-vested observers would honor their own reputations by speaking to objectives, standards, and rankings -- not how they've been blemished by greatness or influenced by the people they're profiling. Sounds like the ghost of journalistic myth-making? Sounds like a reason to pay for content in cash -- not gratitude.

Build It -- and They Will Dump

In the web 3.0 future to be this darker Facebook will be compensated from both sides of the message exchange. Anonymous enemies will get to post unsubstantiated kiss-and-tells once they sign-up. Group members will pony up too. But they'll have to preempt these negative reviews with their own cathartic self-examinations. Post enough of these face-saving gestures and perhaps they can learn the actual identities of their blasphemers. Now that's a business model no practicing journalist is in any position to bargain over.

The most intriguing difference in floating the counterweight to Facebook idea is that my peers see it as a license to print money. "You can't call it 'BlackFace Book' -- too facial," one friend quipped. They suggested names like 'Disgrace Book' or even 'Evil Facebook' and the servers would crash from the endless lines of partisans queuing at the chance to shape a fair and balanced view for each profile holder: "can I subtract you as my enemy?"

However, when I rolled out the same business plan to a 20-something colleague they headed immediately for the cyber-bullying exits. 'Controversial' was the diplomatic term they used for unleashing the innert tensions between editorial control and open source opinionating. That perspective carries a greater educational value than any social or anti-social medium and the business models that will dwell there.

In-Our-Face Book

The most fundamental disconnect of current state web 2.5 lies between our dual roles as content producers and consumers. It's one thing to shed aliases and handles as fluidly as we're pressed for passwords. It's quite another to be torn between our need for peer approval and self-protection. That's not a minor misalignment. That's a deep and impassable identity crisis. How the two are reconciled is not the next big app. It's the staging ground for the gathering storm perfection of:

* The rise of Facebook
* The fall of journalism
* The abyss of credibility

For the last five years or so we've been feeding the sociable media beast with friend affirmations. We want a sense of belonging, of inclusiveness. But if we pay for that community-building with back-scratches and platitudes that leaves a gaping hole between what we hope to be expressed and what we know to be true. It's not that Facebook praises are empty but enforced by a culture of reciprocal transparency. As much as positive reinforcement is the elixir of choice for self-expression, it leaves us hungry for how others perceive us. It's tone deaf to the indifference of outsiders. Those are the potential employers who background check us out. But they're not looking for suitors, social circles, or listening to our echo chamber of megaphones.

They just want to know they can trust us and can't just take our word for it.

What would happen if none of us were allowed to post to our own social media profiles? Would our friends make up for the shortfall? Could our enemies commit "face crimes" and libel us with half-truths and fabrications? In a regulated web, non-vested observers would honor their own reputations by speaking to objectives, standards, and rankings -- not how they've been blemished by greatness or influenced by the people they're profiling. Sounds like the ghost of journalistic myth-making? Sounds like a reason to pay for content in cash -- not gratitude.

Build It -- and They Will Dump

In the web 3.0 future to be this darker Facebook will be compensated from both sides of the message exchange. Anonymous enemies will get to post unsubstantiated kiss-and-tells once they sign-up. Group members will pony up too. But they'll have to preempt these negative reviews with their own cathartic self-examinations. Post enough of these face-saving gestures and perhaps they can learn the actual identities of their blasphemers. Now that's a business model no practicing journalist is in any position to bargain over.

The most intriguing difference in floating the counterweight to Facebook idea is that my peers see it as a license to print money. "You can't call it 'BlackFace Book' -- too facial," one friend quipped. They suggested names like 'Disgrace Book' or even 'Evil Facebook' and the servers would crash from the endless lines of partisans queuing at the chance to shape a fair and balanced view for each profile holder: "can I subtract you as my enemy?"

However, when I rolled out the same business plan to a 20-something colleague they headed immediately for the cyber-bullying exits. 'Controversial' was the diplomatic term they used for unleashing the innert tensions between editorial control and open source opinionating. That perspective carries a greater educational value than any social or anti-social medium and the business models that will dwell there.