Fortune Favors The Bold

via dpstyles

Forgive my tendency to spoil a perfect quote with personal perspective. Thoughts:

1. Dodgeball’s connection authorization process allowed for something better than a simple roster of local check-ins; it let you build your own personal feed of people. Call it editorialized, curated, etc. Your friend list was basically a crafted list of other’s personal brands which selectively (and “curated” in the reverse direction) shared information. How you did it was mostly up to you. Some people friended anyone who’d let them. Some people had three closely-linked friends and nothing more. Some people would add friends and immediately move them to the “ex-gf” zone. The point being: social media isn’t just about publishing your own brands, but also about opening possibilities, and setting controls, regarding the brands you wish to interact with. Twitter, of course, blew that wide open; Foursquare also offers innovations in that field. Something to deeply ruminate about.
2. I find it interesting that, through gradual steps of technology, Foursquare has completed the progression to the (ego-centric) avatar-enhanced social alert list for mobile devices that I (quite literally) dreamed about years ago. This goes way beyond the level of SXSW - this is futuristic, World’s Fair type of stuff. Like personal flight and a cashless society.
3. For everyone who dismisses these things as useless (I’ve told this story earlier): In 2004 I read on the web (probably via Krucoff or Gawker) about Dennis having a bar gathering the day he sold Dball. I showed up. Clumsily. And recognized everyone but greeted myself to almost no-one, because none of them knew me and I had nothing to offer. I wouldn’t call it a mistake, but it wasn’t effective either. Starting from knowing no-one, it took a couple of years for me to greet myself properly to the people in that room. Not all of the participants are my friends today, but I definitely value many of the relationships I established. Every time I think of that story, I think of myself like the guy who traded a red paper clip up to a house over the Internet. If that sort of thing is possible, you can’t be dismissive of it. (Related.)