What social software is Joi? @ Radio Free Blogistan

November 12, 2003

Christian Crumlish

Had big fun at Joi Ito's dinner in San Francisco last night. The restaurant, LuLu, printed up special menus for the occasion. Of course I stupidly forgot to grab myself one. I did take a bunch of digiphotos and maybe some of them even came out. I'll post them sometime today.

Too bad Zack Rosen from the Dean campaign couldn't make it. I was planning to buttonhole him. I did finally get to talk face-to-face with James Cox, made a vague impression at best on Joi himself, and had some good random conversations with danah boyd, Dave Sifry, Phil Wolff, and more people hiding behind decaying braincells this morning.

Joi is one of those hub people in social networks that bind together the world. Someone asked me why I came to the dinner and I said that I signed up first and then looked over the guest list, because I was sure there'd be some people there I'd like to meet face-to-face, or catch up with.

A few people told me they felt liked "zeroes" in this context because they don't have blogs. Now, it's an unusual context: a blogger-oriented dinner of 40 or 50 people. In many cases a person's blog might be more familiar than their face or even their name, but I was interested in that guilt feeling one guy described to me, a sense that he should have a blog and that his reasons for not doing so were perhaps holding him back in some way.

I'm all for blogging (obviously) but I don't think everyone will do it or even should. The more, the merrier, but it's just one modality of communication and not necessarily the ultimate one.

By the way, the title of this entry refers to one of the blog-quiz-memes that's been going around lately, What social software are you?. Apparently, I'm FOAF.

Posted by xian at November 12, 2003 9:07 AM

Comments

Usenet as beffiting a dinosaur who has been at this since 1976.

Posted by: Philip at November 12, 2003 2:17 PM

I have no guilt feelings -- I'll probably never blog, I just write software :)

--JYL

Posted by: Jacob Levy at November 12, 2003 3:00 PM

I run into that all the time from people. They feel guilty for not blogging and I think it's so sad to feel guilty for something you don't want to do but feel left out because others are doing it. Besides sometimes blogging isn't all that easy and some of us think about just not doing it anymore but alas that blasted guilt gets us every time :P

Posted by: gnome-girl at November 12, 2003 3:25 PM

aparently i am the blogosphere.
hmmmmmmmmm.
does that mean i am not social at all?

Posted by: liza at November 12, 2003 4:50 PM

Right, Jacob, opting not to blog makes perfect sense for me. It's when someone doesn't want to blog but believes they should that the anxiety kicks it.

Cheyenne, dumb of me not to link to you in my post! I'll do so when I update.

Liza, you're the blogosphere because you're so connected and bloggy.

Posted by: xian at November 12, 2003 5:17 PM

Phillip,

Usenet, me, too, got my first Compuserve account in 82. It looks like I'm going from no blogs to 2 by the first of the year. I'm still in shock.

Posted by: Melanie at November 12, 2003 8:30 PM

I got blogosphere as well.

Posted by: filchyboy at November 15, 2003 8:53 PM