Earthling

Note: The below is an archived entry from Earthling, formerly EarthLink's official blog. The blog itself has been decommissioned and is no longer updated, and comments are trackbacks are no longer accepted.

Just wanted to poke my head in to make a quick observation.

When so many of our conversations and interactions come through mediated forms, like blogs and headlines and online comments, it's easy to forget that the people behind the words are all actual human beings. It's probably much easier to keep this in mind if you live in the middle of one of the power centers of Web 2.0, like Silicon Valley where many of these companies are. But I bet many readers of online content start to see all of these tools and companies as disembodied entities, even if they have a very human, approachable blogging voice. I know Technorati.com as a useful tool and a force in blog search and enabling bloggers to be heard, but even if I've seen David Sifry's picture online it's hard to see his company as something a bunch of people built. It feels like it's own entity, like a machine.

Sifry looks at Mooney's Technorati tag implementation

A discussion about the pros and cons of Technorati's tagging system broke out in Jeff Jarvis' keynote address just now. The neat thing was, not only was Technorati's founder David Sifry right there to be a part of the conversation, but he was also there to sit down with Paul Mooney to look at his product from the perspective of a somewhat frustrated end-user. And Paul was willing to engage directly, and in person, rather than through a blog or some other mediated form of communication. I'm sure this stuff happens all the time, but it's easy for it to be overshadowed (especially outside of the valley) by headlines and online gossip and really nice logos and the impressive software these people produce.

Conferences like Syndicate are expensive and hard to get to, so it's not as if everyone has access to this kind of small demystification of the emerging tools of online conversation. But especially for regular folks who might be writing their own personal blog to reach a few friends and not as an industry pundit, it's ts important to remember that behind all of these tools and impressive news-breaking expert blogs there are actual human beings that have minds and emotions and voices.

Josh Hallett has some more coverage and links (and audio) from the morning. Rick Klau sums up the Q and A. You can find additional coverage and perspectives at Technorati. I'll add more links as well.

I'll go back to paying attention to the keynotes now.