• Of Social Media Baubles

    I read Umair Haque’s post – The Social Media Bubble, through the prism of  ‘interesting’ vs ‘popular‘, the subject of my last post. In the post, Haque’s biggest gripe with social media, the way it is now, is the low quality of ties between the people who are connected. Thin relationships, he calls them and he has five supporting arguments – the disproportionate rise in the average number of ‘friends’ vs trust, the creation of more intermediaries rather than removal of old ones, hate (and I keep ranting about this on the other blog – trigger happiness), exclusion (again, something from the other blog – the clique friendly web), and lack of intrinsic value (and therefore the need to monetise, perhaps by ‘extractive, ethically questionable ways’). He also sees three major casualties because of this – inefficient attention allocation, investment in low quality content, and the weakening of the Internet as a force for good.

    Now, the archives of posts here and on the other blog would show that I am sometimes frustrated and disappointed with a lot of activities on the social web, its usage, and therefore the direction in which it is going. But then again, I still have faith in the social web, and believe what we’re going through is the phase of transition, a time between fundamental shifts in the way we interact, and I’d be naive to expect it to be smooth. Also, unlike the earlier forms of media and communication, the web (and mobile) seem to have a much smaller gestation time between disruptions. I now tend to believe that this IS the way its going to be for quite a long time, because we’ve only started exploring avenues and possibilities. So, extrapolating current usage patterns to the future in a disruptive scenario looks flawed to me. But yes, like any other ardent faithful, I too am looking for signs.. and thoughts.

    So while I did agree a lot with what was written in the post, and considered it a very good read, I was even more happy to read two replies to that post – “Rethinking Thin: Social Relationships in Social Media“, by Adrian Chan, and “Umair Haque is another new spatialist” by Stowe Boyd.

    Adrian Chan does a great job in deconstructing Haque’s post. He first argues that the logic and analytic of social network analysis cannot be based on the attributes and qualities of human relationships and social organization. He maintains that in the former, the tie (and its not the same as a relationship) is more significant than the node. (person) The (sometimes) asynchronous and unequal communication facilitated by the medium is also a point well made. The semantics of “social”, when explored through the meanings of ties, interactions, communication and relationships is something I found very enlightening. On the whole, I agree that these tools are modes and means of producing communication, and offer us means to form ties, interact, possibly communicate and then over a period of time, even establish a relationship. But the ties can be just that, and remain to be re-used in other contexts and at other times too, by people I may not have a relationship with, until then. Its a post you really must read, and I must confess that I’m still (re) reading it to truly grasp all the arguments.

    Stowe Boyd argues that Haque is ‘undervaluing the utility of weak ties’ and then brings in three of his own thoughts – ‘social has not gone far enough’, whatever is there has been ‘commoditized by the corporate types’, and a worry about the governance of the social web. The common thread that I sensed (with the paragraph above) was how the dynamics of broadcast media have been brought into play in blogging and microblogging. (attributes of one system forced on another). The other wrong attribution, with respect to Haque’s post, is perhaps looking at it through just an economic framework. The New Urbanism and New Spatialism notes are really fascinating, and that’s an understatement.

    Very honestly, and it most probably is because of my levels of understanding, the two ‘rebuttals’ and the thoughts therein, are quantum leaps that are required, which will take time. In the short-medium term, I think it will be an evolution (as opposed to a revolution). We might end up with better social media structures and frameworks of understanding or we could become a set of gated communities within a world wild web with controlled experiences suited to our likes and dislikes. The latter is not something I’d like since we’ll just be trading one set of walls and gatekeepers for another. In either case, I hope the medium term will see better tools for managing our ties and relationships, and will help us streamline our creation, and consumption. A good note on that curation by Robert Scoble.

    Meanwhile, I’m also thinking of the implication for brands. The no-brainer is an approach that goes beyond tools and looks at basic changes required within and without. The other part is setting the expectations right on metrics and ROI, when using the social web?

    until next time, echosystems, I hope not..

  • Social Obligations

    Sometime back, I had this conversation with Surekha. Let me give you the context. I subscribe to a lot of sites on Google Reader, and therefore find a lot of links that I want to share. I end up sharing them – on Reader itself, where i can also ‘Like’ it, on Twitter, rarely on FB, many times on delicious. I also use many of these links for the posts on my other blog. Surekha’s  observation was that I was stingy with praise. I, as is my wont, proceeded to defend myself. I said that since my sharing had multiple layers and filters, the very fact that I shared it on Twitter was a praise in itself. She called me elitist (which, after a recent post, is almost as insulting to me as being called a vegetarian :p) 😀 From where she’s looking, she’s right, and its a valid perspective, though I wouldn’t admit it then. 😀

    It made me think about how I share links. Now, I’m not sure if this is retrofit rationalisation or an inbuilt mechanism. In my chat with Surekha I had mentioned that my varied interests meant that what I considered a ‘Good Read’ might be a lousy read for someone not interested in the subject. I wonder now, if my binary kind of approach to things (0 or 1, extremes) coupled with my objectivity fixation makes me just share something without an opinion, so that the person who reads is without the baggage of my bias, good or bad.

    Sometime back, after watching the stream for a while, and reading opinions on a subject, I asked Mo, “post this generation,do you think anyone will know there is a ‘don’t like it,don’t use it’ option? wouldn’t they feel obliged to comment? :|”.  I felt that, what blogging started, microblogging has accelerated. From books and places and events to personal traits – not just of celebrities, but of other users’, everything finds its way into the stream, the digital version of the collective consciousness. To corrupt the current Videocon line “We is the new me”. Our ‘stream world’ and all its inhabitants seem extensions of ourselves, a huge canvas of vicarious living. Do many of us feel obliged to share our opinion in real time, some kind of pressure to constantly contribute, and so we comment on everything we can lay hands on?

    In this sharing blitz, do we spare a thought for the object of our comment? Specifically people. With real time, opinions are being formed in minutes. Yes, everyone is entitled to one, but does it also mean we become trigger-happy? When we stick labels, when we judge, do we think of the effort/thought/perspective of the person at the other end? (those on Twitter, think #mpartha, #princesssheeba…I must say, i confess to some silly work on the latter) As we have more listeners, do we feel obliged to pass judgment and evolve into what others would be impressed with/like? Is that why people change when they become popular on say, twitter? It happens in real life too – this modeling of self based on the audience, but in real life, its difficult to enter the streams of thousands of people. With each of us getting a microphone, I wonder if we have entered ourselves unwittingly into a new form of rat race, in which the casualty is compassion and consideration for others?

    until next time, this is an opinion too 🙂

  • Hae Kum Gang

    No, I’m not announcing my Chinese triad, Hae Kum Gang is a Korean restaurant on Castle Street, which came highly recommended. My experience of Korea is limited to our Samsung TV, the neighbour’s Hyundai, and reading Pico Iyer. We don’t own any LG products, but we have been to Soo Ra Sang. Here’s a map that’ll tell you how to get there. Just remember that Castle Street is a one way and you have to access it from Richmond Road. (first right after the Lifestyle junction, okay, second if you include the road that goes to Garuda). The restaurant is on the second floor of a building that’s close to the Brigade Road end of Castle Street. There’s enough parking space available.

    The ambiance is quite homely (and not just the ‘experienced’ table napkins), subtle, not garish, and remains in the background, with paintings, vases, and Korean music. The Korean crowd comes free with the ambiance!! At 7.30, the place was almost full with perhaps one table occupied by non-Koreans. A good indicator of the authenticity and popularity of the place.

    Now, on to the food. The best part about the menu is that its like kiddie books, with lots of pictures, so you know what you’re getting into. For starters, there are fritters – chicken, veg, squid, shrimp at Rs.100-130. Soups at Rs50-100 and you can choose from kimchi, veg, beef, haemul and cream of mushroom. The last one is something we wanted to try but it was voted down in favor of the subliminally effective beef.wan.ja. There are also salads in veg and chicken.

    Quickly through the menu before we get to what we ate. There’s Tteokbokki, rice cakes in hot sauce with veg or seafood. There’s Tang su yuk, veg/beef/pork in fruit sauce. Sweet and sour, I was told. The Chulpan Gui set, which consists of the ‘main ingredients’ in Korean spicy sauce, and is served in a hot steel plate. Its available in chicken, beef and squid at Rs.380, and at Rs.300 without the set (side dishes). There’s the Ttuk Bok Gi set, rice cakes topped with fried veg, followed by chilly sauce, served  in hot ceramic pots, at Rs.280. Dup.bap has nothing to do with alternate parentage and is just stir fried sea food/pork/chicken/squid/mushroom and vegetables in sauce, served with rice. (Rs.250). And then there’s ‘Healthy Food’, which is steamed shrimp, squid and mushroom with chilly/soy/mustard sauce at Rs.550. This is why I hate healthy food. There’s Om Rice, fried rice wrapped in egg crepe. The Jeon Gol set, which is a stew served in ceramic pots. There are various noodles available at Rs.300, steamed pork ribs in soy bean/chilly sauce at Rs.450, special spicy chicken/shrimp at Rs.250/280, and Kim.bap.

    The beef wan.ja was an extremely good starter, the ‘melt in your mouth’ variety, made of ground beef. For the main course, D ordered a Chulpan Gui set – Chicken and I asked for a Kimchi Cchi ge- pork soup. The ‘set’ consists of side dishes – radish, baby potato in a honey-sesame sauce, spinach, cabbage, kimchi and fried brinjal. The brinjal and baby potato are very good. D was reasonably satisfied with her chicken dish. For some reason I sensed a seafood smell in the dish, probably the sauce or the same vessel used for a shrimp/squid dish. The pork soup I had was extremely good, also had tofu and an assortment of vegetables, and went very well with the rice that comes with both the dishes. D actually enjoyed it more than her dish. The meal ended with a fruit salad in orange juice syrup, quite delicious and part of the set. You could also order ginseng tea, su.jeong.gwa (cold and cinnamon flavored) , both at Rs.50 or pitchers of jasmine/chrysanthemum flavored tea at Rs.250. There are also ice cream/juice options to choose from.

    All of the above cost us just less than Rs.900. The service is pretty decent and we did get some help in the choice of dishes. The ambiance is pleasant enough though its no comparison to the skyline view offered by Soo Ra Sang. I have a feeling that they hiked the prices recently, or maybe I just read ‘value for money’ differently. In closing, worth a try for a very different cuisine.

    Hae Kum Gang, 2nd Floor, Paul Castle, #20, Castle Street, Ashok Nagar, Bangalore. Ph: 41127730/2

  • Brands – Interesting vs Popular

    These days, Reader is helping me find a balance that contains both ‘interesting’ and ‘popular’ content. I came upon a very interesting post on Reader via Mahendra Palsule, which was one exactly this topic – Would you rather be Interesting OR Popular by Justin Kownacki.

    For the purpose of this post,

    Interesting: Arousing or holding attention

    Popular: Regarded with favour/approval by general public

    To briefly summarise, Justin sees a clear dichotomy in ‘interesting’ and ‘popular’, and states that when something becomes popular, “it will simultaneously cease to be interesting.” The reason, and I would more or less agree to it basis my experiences, is that when it becomes popular, my relationship with the ‘interesting’ entity changes. Suddenly, it is an interest that has moved from a relatively private territory to a more public one. Like Justin notes, it creates dissonance with my self perception of being an interesting person. Meanwhile, money also has a role to play. “interesting sells, but popular sells a lot“, for various reasons.

    Meanwhile, like many many others, I subscribe to the uber popular (and interesting) Seth Godin, and on the same day, he wrote a post titled ” Driveby culture and the endless search for wow“. I felt that they were related, especially when Godin writes about the creation and consumption of culture.

    As the comments in Justin’s post indicate, there are entities which have successfully been both interesting and popular, but I’d say they are exceptions. I’ve always believed in ‘interesting’ (against ‘popular’) over a larger time frame, and if I go by Godin’s last paragraph in the post, I think he is on that side too. Which is why, I wonder with the massive changes that social platforms bring to creation and consumption of content, brands will have to choose between interesting and popular.

    To generalise, the era of mass media made ‘popular’ easy for brands. Like Godin says, money could buy an audience. And that’s exactly what happened when there was scarcity of content. The audience had, and paid, attention. A percentage consumed the brand, sales went up, more money bought more attention. The message  also often pandered to the lowest common denominator. Brands didn’t have to be interesting until they operated in the commodity space, and then it became a gimmick.

    When I started using the platforms of what is labeled as social media, I thought there was something that could change this cycle. I still do, in spite of this post (most of it justified, by the way) by Steve Hodson. I think what we’re seeing now is brands seeing social as just another media, and going the ‘popular’ way. The  majority of the audience too, is discovering popularity, and would like to have a share of that themselves. So their consumption and creation would be on that front. In a way, for now, one set of media is being replaced by personal brands.  But in spite of that, the basics of social platforms create opportunities for those brands with ‘interesting’ as their way to be, to have their say. While examples are few and far in between now, I think its just the learning curve taking its time. Maybe the examples are not so easily available precisely they are only interesting to a smaller audience set of users now. Maybe there never will be, because it IS difficult for popular and interesting to go hand in hand.  🙂

    I think ‘popular’ is going to be even more difficult to sustain, and not just in terms of communication, but organisational culture, scalability and so on. As content becomes even more abundant, and as technology permeates the lion’s share of our daily interactions, I think the audience will swing towards ‘interesting’, because in  it, I sense, is freedom, and opportunity. And that goes for brands too. However, it remains, as always, a matter of intent, and though I feel that it is indeed a question of ‘interesting’ vs ‘popular’, in the medium term, both kinds of brands will co exist.

    until next time, popularity chats in the comments then? 🙂

    P.S: Do you think Apple is interesting trying to be popular?

  • Game Theory

    There’s this favourite t-shirt of mine – “If you’re interested in time travel, meet me last thursday”. I’ve always been interested in dimensions, thanks to science fiction and Skeletor/Sorceress in the He-Man series opening portals in other dimensions outside the physical constraints of Eternia. That perhaps explains the recurrence of alternate realities  and parallel universes in the blog.

    S and I had this interesting discussion recently on dimensions. No, don’t run away, it wasn’t really a scientific discussion.  I definitely am not qualified for one anyway, though at a concept level, I think it did get close to M-theory. (no relation to this blog 🙂 )  It was based on an abstract thought that on one hand, time is getting crunched and so is space, so where is all the crunched ‘stuff’ going. My point of view was that, time was expanding not crunching, since technology has made it easier for me to do things in shorter time, so it would perhaps balance the space crunch. No, conference calls don’t count, that works the other way. Space is no longer crunched, because calls are taken on the mobile, so conference halls are not required, and sigh, the calls last forever. 😐

    The thought I had though, was that the relationship (space-time) was being defined in/by the reality around us. What if there were other dimensions involved which were affecting this relationship? Do they exist? Will we unlock them? Will they be the answers to the occurrences that we cannot explain within our current dimensional knowledge? Funnily, these questions pop up whenever I play with the shiny new toy called Foursquare, and see people unlocking badges.

    At a basic level, badges get unlocked after specific user experiences – some repetitions, some new ones. I always equate them to new dimensions we observe in our personality after different experiences. That’s a kind of unlocking too, no? All of that brings me to another unanswered question. Is what we call death is actually the ‘experience’ we need to have to unlock another dimension? Or maybe we’ll need the other dimensions only after the death experience? Just like a regular multi level game. 🙂

    until next time, death is a great leveler? 🙂

    PS. What if the experience we understand as ‘death’ is ‘living’ in another dimension? I wonder then if cremation hurts, but our expressions in the other dimension cannot be heard here. Brr..