why i hate web 2.0, part n of x

[rone]

One of the product people at work sent this link around.  The quote she passed around sent me straight into throat-punch mode:

Myspace is the digital ghetto.  It's ugly, nasty, and brutish.  But it's got soul and character.  Interesting conversations happen there.  In other words, it's messy.  And, in large part, that's why it's rocked - messiness explodes value creation at the edge.

LinkedIn is clean, smooth, and streamlined - and utterly devoid of any possibilities for meaningful interaction.

But this in itself begs a deeper question. Why didn't LinkedIn ever learn to get messy?

Comparing LinkedIn to MySpace is like comparing an escalator to a jetpack.  There is no meaningful analysis to make.  Yes, the Business 2.0 piece that sparked this mess was brutally inane (and i'm not just saying that because LinkedIn is nominally a Visible Path competitor), but Umair's response is almost as fatuous.  He completely fails to support his "MESSY ROX LOL" theory, which i rather offensive because it's so transparently dotcom-boomish; using MySpace as an example of successful 'messy' is like dropping a flat of eggs to illustrate the old "you have to break a few eggs to make an omelette" saw.  I want this sort of specious thought to dry up and blow away.

Comments

[kraquehaus.livejournal.com]

I could go on and on about this.

Right now having good design skills is an anti-commodity.

If another boss of mine ever tells me to "turn up the pimpage" again, I'm going to bring hookers to work and do blow off a rather long coke nail.

"How's that?"

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Wow, i don't know what i'd say if a boss ever told me that in a serious manner. "No hablo inglés," maybe.

[kraquehaus.livejournal.com]

It was surreal. It was hard not to laugh and cry at the same time.

[cheesetruck.livejournal.com]

you pull out your 9, smack him across the face, and say

BITCH BETTA HAVE MY MONEY!

Then you curb him.

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

Apparently "soul and character" == an excess of 14-19 year-olds as your userbase.

Who knew?

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

And a continuous problem with keeping accounts secure, and lots of spammers.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

There's also a weird racial undertone to the whole characterization of "the ghetto" as "ugly, nasty, brutish" but the place you go to get "soul and character".

[palecur.livejournal.com]

messiness explodes value creation at the edge

This. This right here. This is what sets the "Throat-Punch Mode" bit to ON. Who the unholy goblinfucking ass-hell uses language like that?

[crisper.livejournal.com]

People who got into producing porn because they really really really wanted to be filmmakers no matter what.

[mrbalihai.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing the Web Economy Bullshit Generator (http://dack.com/web/bullshit.html) has finally achieved self-awareness.

[kodi]

I'm confused. When the article says MySpace is "messy," are they talking about the visual style, or the huge population of illiterate assholes? Or are they saying that one leads to the other, and that produces explodes creativity?

[tskirvin.livejournal.com]

Interesting conversations happen there? Where?

[crisper.livejournal.com]

The only resource on this planet that is unlikely to run out, ever, is idiocy.

[haineux.livejournal.com]

Dude, I will give you a SHINY DOLLAR COIN if you spin this into a reason that the machines needed us in The Matrix.

My braine is too fried, or I'd do it. It's the ONLY POSSIBLE WAY to make that shit make sense.

[crisper.livejournal.com]

Perhaps human idiocy is the only true source of randomness in the universe. Well, human idiocy and the quantum escape of Hawking radiation from a deflating singularity, but the latter is considerably more tricky (and dangerous) to accquire.

[sweh.livejournal.com]

And to think, a lot of people dumped usenet for some of the same reasons that are now being used to promote MySpace :-)

[reddragdiva]

He's right about messiness and wrong about MySpace. I hope.

His reasoning is in fact why Vox sucks.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

His point about messiness/cleanliness is superficially and incidentally correct at best. And Vox sucks because of second system effect.