Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Somebody please write "Gestures for Dummies".. I beg you..

Ok. I am officially crying "Uncle!". Scoble's 'Gesture Firestorm' post leaves me dazed and confused, almost like one of the endless headlocks that my older brother used to give me throughout my youth.

Scoble contends that his posts about his mother and Montana were a 'gesture to the world' that was returned in kind by a 'gesture' from Rick Goff who informed him of news about a fire in that area. Robert then goes on to explain that he now understands what Steve Gillmor means by 'gestures'. I'm sure glad he does. I'm not entirely sure I do.

If 'gestures' mean the things I do which indicate my wants, needs or interests, then I'm not sure anybody will be able to usurp Google's lock on this information. They've already built a 'gesture' bank the size of which is just scary. Based on storing and scanning my Gmail, and search data, they've built a huge base of personal information from which to springboard all kinds of algorithmic-based services of the kind Scoble cites.

I truly wish Gillmor would hire someone to take his ideas and translate them into honest-to-gosh plain english, if indeed that's possible. Maybe there are some true nuggets in there, I just can't seem to decipher them. I think Doc Searls or even better yet, Dave Slusher should be hired on to route-the-info from InfoRouter so to speak.

And just to add confusion to the daze, witness this gem from Robert's post:

"One other thing. I didn’t link to Fred Wilson’s blog. Why? Cause if you really cared you’d have read it by now, right? I assume my readers know how to use Google and TechMeme. Cause you’re smarter than me and I can find Fred in both places right now."


Huh? I'd only consider myself smarter than you Robert because I'd have put the link in. Do you really think that people will stop in the middle of your article to Google a subject within your post? It is much easier (and dare I say - smarter) that I middle-click the interesting links in your post to open them on additional tabs for exploration after reading your post.

Will SOMEBODY please explain to me why making me search for things that you could easily point me to is somehow doing me (or that 'thing') a great service? Honestly, I want an explanation as to how this does anything for you as the blogger or him as a subject within your blog? (And in plain english please - babblespeak will not be tolerated).

I hope I'm wrong, but maybe Scoble is being assimilated by the Borg, only the Borg was not Microsoft but something else entirely. How soon until you're saying Office IS Dead Robert? ;)

[Update: Missed this somehow. Kent Newsome attempts to Debunk This Gesture Nonsense]

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

It ain't happening from me. I thought the gesture stuff was bogus once Steve ignored the things I told him flat out in the most direct possible manner while going on about this weird woo-woo gesture nonsense. When someone ignores my words in favor of the abstraction of my words, the only thing I know for sure is that I'm wasting my breath.