ABOUT CLICKED

The modern news consumer ignores Weblogs and online citizen journalism at his own peril. But not everyone has the time to keep track of what's going on the Web. With this blog we hope to track the highlights of what's being discussed online so when news breaks from the Web, we're ready.

Will Femia is a Weblog enthusiast who, through good fortune and dumb luck, was introduced to the form as his position as chat producer for MSNBC.com careered into obsolescence. On any given day, Will can be found having already spent an unhealthy amount of time squinting at a computer screen.

Send a message to Will at spotter@msnbc.com



Was it all a dream?

Posted: Thursday, January 31, 2008 10:39 AM by Will Femia

080130 013 I'm on the road again - a trip to the mothership in Redmond, Washington. Yesterday was my travel day, followed immediately by meetings. I'm hoping to get some time between events today to get some blogging done.

My transcontinental commuter reading was two items that contributed to a general feeling of a correction in the market of ideas.

The hot one online, Is the Tipping Point Toast? refutes the conventional wisdom (taken from Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point) that socially well-connected "influencers" have more power to spread ideas and trigger viral distribution. The spread of ideas, it argues, has more to do with how receptive the audience is than who the idea is coming from.

Needless to say, this turns a lot of the new ideas in marketing on their head. Faith in influencers goes hand in hand with the the notion the Power Law means that if you aren't popular, you won't be. (That's not exactly what it says but it's hard to avoid that feeling.) Recasting the Web as a lottery of ideas is exciting.

I also read this longer piece criticizing the practice (and celebration) of multitasking and multifunctionality. (It's from this past November.) Apparently not only does multitasking not work, it works worse and it's bad for your brain.

So there are no influencers, multitasking is a bad idea, tech bloggers are out of ideas... I'm feeling like Pam Ewing waking up to find Bobby in the shower.

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Comments

Thanks for the link on Duncan Watts.  His points challenge "The Tipping Point" were interesting.

Henry Cate, California (Sent Thursday, January 31, 2008 3:29 PM)

I was completely sucked into that article on mutlitasking...all while eating lunch, answering the work phone, listening to music, updating my calendar...
Hope you're enjoying your time here in Seattle!  It may be freezing, rainy, and windy, but at least the snow has stopped temporarily!

Summer, Seattle, WA (Sent Thursday, January 31, 2008 3:46 PM)

Will,

I gotta tell you. I have a business plan for you. Post much more often and watch the traffic come in. From my point of view, the best link site on the web (honestly). Just not enough updates.

phil, Chicago, IL (Sent Thursday, January 31, 2008 7:23 PM)

Heh ... and I feel vindicated. I've been saying this stuff ever since the PC leapt whole from Bill Gates' head.

Clint, Chicago, Illinois (Sent Thursday, January 31, 2008 7:35 PM)

Phil, that's something that has plagued Clicked for as long as I've been writing it. On days when other work gets in the way I try to blog from home or on weekends but sometimes I just can't pull it off. If I could just write my thoughts and ideas I'd be OK, but having to actually read through this stuff or watch the videos just takes too much time and connectivity to whip them out when I have a few spare minutes.  That said, I'm going to try to do just that today in between conference sessions. Of course that's going to mean some multitasking and we now know what that's all about.

Will Femia (Sent Friday, February 01, 2008 11:01 AM)

Nothing is so useless as a brilliant, well thought out idea whose time has not come. There are many examples of ideas resurrected from the past that get implemented in a later time when the general populace is ready for them. It's not the influential people who are important, but the population at large being ready to implement the idea.

It's kind of why the patent system is in place. It exists to record inventor's ideas that at the time were useless but when applied at at later time with better materials, newer scientific understanding are actually usable to produce marketable product. It's also why it's a good idea to have patent rights die after a short period of time has passed to prevent the ideas from being locked up by cement headed inventors and/or cement headed businesses who buy the patents up and have no intention of really using those ideas.

Sean, Oregon (Sent Saturday, February 02, 2008 5:58 PM)



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