Social media and its discontents

The concluding part of my conversation with Peter Friedman about social media and his fears about what happens after what happens next.

SF: So we can see what you took from Kyte and put into SupportInsight but what have you taken from SupportInsight? How much of it is in Hercomeseveryone?

PF: Well, with the advent of the blogosphere and RSS people have now finally begun to recognise the value (that the Kyte experience taught me in 2000 and that I implemented in SupportInsight) of the  news and community process, so at least this is one thing we no longer have to convince people is worthwhile.

SF: So now that this idea has become accepted is there anything new that you can bring to the party these days? Isn’t it all a done deal?

PF: Even those who are pushing the social media envelope don’t know what they’re getting right and what they’re getting wrong, what they should retain from the traditional way of doing things and how they should recombine components from the old way in new ways.

The critics of social media in its current form are right.

In most cases, instead of fulfilling the utopian dreams of its earliest proponents (such as the Cluetrainers) it is turning into a monster.

By treating the new channels as yet another opportunity to exploit people’s supposed gullibility, Social Media is becoming yet another way of undermining trust.

My original discoveries about using the news/community and inter site relationship model for generating attention were coupled with a recognition that, if this model was used indiscriminately it would become just another source of resistance, just a ratcheting up of the noise level.

That is exactly what’s happening right now.

SF: So are you saying, if you anticipated this, that you had any ideas about how to stop this whole social media thing from eating itself?

Yes, there was no way I was interested in making my worst nightmares come true, so I spent most of the time I dedicated to research into the potential for social media into building the next generation model.

This was aimed at preventing this much more intensive communication process from becoming unbearable, simply because I was convinced it would be discovered and be exploited mercilessly without any consideration of the inevitable backlash.

SF: So what is this ‘next generation model?’

PF: It’s HereComesEveryone! We thought the best way to explain it was to do it – we didn’t want to wait another couple of years till people hit the backlash and started to ask – what next? We thought – lets do it now, see if we can help to prevent it?

SF: What is it then?

PF: The bottom line is – it’s not all about attention – that’s just the beginning. There’s also a trust algorithm.

SF: That sounds like a contradiction in terms

PF: Maybe this is a good place to stop?

SF: No, you’ll need to unpack that

PF: Watch this space.