Searching for Signal: Part II

Last night I turned the comments on. It only took a few minutes before the first spam message appeared in my inbox from the blog. Gad. The web predators certainly are evolving fast. One wonders. We want to have these participative conversations but as soon as we open up, the opportunists begin to piss in the soup.

I had a long conversation with the owner of a popular 3D chat room. She related an interesting bit. 3D rooms that don't have multi-user chat don't last. She said, "They're lonely places." That implies that many of the experiments in 3D enabling interactive but non-multi-user 3D apps don't have a promising shelf life. When I think of all the failed experiments in search engines, shopping malls and visualization that tried the sex of 3D and flopped, or the 3D cartoons that while fun to watch were really linear 3D and therefore could just as well have been 2D Flash or machinima, evidence builds that what we've always said is more true than ever: the killer apps are always presence apps where people can make contact with each other. Social worlds do better. Not exactly news but once again, we are reminded the users are mammals and mammals are social critters constantly searching for signal. The smart money develops apps to hook them up.

Searching for signal: it's a meme I guess.

Next week, we'll look into combative pragmatics. Being a contrarian, if the pundits and heros are going to proseletyze for Web 2.0 being pragmatically enabled for negotiation, I'll take the other side and discuss how to use pragmatics in combat with the other chimps on the hunt for bangmates and domination of the monkey tree.

Searching For Signal

Queens follow kings. Kings follow danger
Seeking advice from a beckoning stranger.
Truth isn't easily found in your dreams.
It's nothing from nothing whatever it seems.

You crawl to the top. Ambition is calling.
The moment you stand, you're already falling.
Love's not a prize for a victory won.
Love's how you feel when the loving is done.

What taste do you think is more bitter than this:
The lie on your lips or her passionless kiss?
A gift without knowing the reason for giving
Is rotten as flesh when it's no longer living.

Heartless and void, merciless cold
You humbled yourself as the cameras rolled.
Now that its over while sycophants sigh,
You're searching for signal from an ebony sky,

len - 2/21/06