Alan Gutierrez

Christopher Johnston sent me an invitation to join the evaluating classes in some latest social network that has pictures plus tagging, or tagging plus podcasts, or podcasts plus pictures. In any case, I braced my self for another blast of empowerment.

Here’s the part where I was supposed to upload a photograph of myself.

Note the agreement to forgo pornographic uploads.

After competing registration, this is the page that greets me.

Note the advertisement to enjoy pornographic downloads.

Evaluation over. Verdict: Lame.

Update: Is that what people are going to see when they see my face and read my profile? I’ve spent the last 30 minutes trying to delete my photograph. I have a headache.

Not at all. Not to save it’s life.

Originally, I posted this in the comments of another blog, but want it as a point of reference.

How does someone engage with the industry about (one specific example of) real world use of social networking, without being overwhelmed by the Web 2.0 nonsense?

I’ve been teaching people how to use blogging to tell stories about their recovery in New Orleans. Stories and information sharing. People who’ve taken interest in my project in the industry have this horrifying attitude:

I couldn’t help but notice that you’ve created a user base, you obviously have not heard of the transformative power of (tagging / rss / podcasting / ajax). Have you told your user base about the exciting new startup datataggr.tv? You enter in all you contact information, the contact information of everyone you know, and then you (tag it/syndicate it/podcast it/jax off to it). It empowers your user base to be empowered.

Seeing as how there is no cost to me to have you deploy, endorse, or provide technical support for datataggr.tv, there must be no cost to you to do the same.

I’m sure that if you set people in front of datataggr.tv they will gladly spend hours exploring the user interface, divulging personal secrets, and that they will forgo their recovery planning meetings, coffee klatches, lunches, church services, mardi gras krewe parties, jazz concerts, and second line parades so that they can build their social network.

I can’t tell you how many times someone sends me a link to a startup website and says, hey bonehead, you need to sign people up to this one. Extra groan for each instance of the word empower.

I’ve got a nonprofit with a mission and it’s not to provide startups with beta-testers.

I know that some of these startups end up getting sold on eBay, with Dukes of Hazzard lunch boxes. How can someone seriously suggest that I direct people to pour their post-K recovery stories into the latest Web 2.0 information orifice?

I flog Flickr and WordPress. I’m thrilled when someone who attends a workshop actually starts to post entries in their new recovery journal, or neighborhood newsletter, (not a blog, it’s a FUD word).

I’ve answered my own question. It’s that stupid long tail again.

Something that I’ve always wanted. Universal flash cards. More or less how I imagined it. I’d like it to be better suited to language flash cards, however.

I spoke with the mysterious Ryan Vis. I’m pretty eager to use these new found social networking skills to create a loosely organized project. Perhaps the people that are working with me in New Orleans can help create the Daily Beta, giving their feedback on the Web 2.0 software they are using as a result of working with Think New Orleans. I thought I’d start with the [Daily Beta Wiki].

Via Perspective of Niti Bahn. Nibblettes creates the Web 2.0 logo for Delta, which awed more than amused.

This was a belated response to a Yah Hooray a thread called redesign famous logos in Web 2.0 format.

I’d like to welcome you to my new project. The Daily Beta. It is a daily screencast of a Web 2.0 application. Ryan has already been by, and I hope he’ll return. Please give me your insights into the format and production. Please suggest some Web 2.0 applications for me to breezethrough or evaluate.

Back in ‘69, ‘70, the Internet ment something. Those days are gone, baby.

It was designed to survive a nuclear holocaust.

Why didn’t we change the MX records on edu domains? Store that email somewhere outside of New Orleans, let people keep their accounts. Why did webmail bounce? Couldn’t we have dropped quotas for people with Gulf Coast zip codes?

Recovery 2.0 the most thinly veiled agenda I’ve ever seen. Now that people are scattered and their networks destroyed, let’s see if they’ll migrate. Let’s talk about how, in our Web 2.0 fantasies, Ajax and Atom organize people without phone lines.

The Web 2.0 crowd needs to temper their enthusiasm for their untested web based vision, and reocognize that, New Orleans especially, needs practical information technology.

The real hero of Katrina was NOLA.com and the NOLA.com forums. Written in 1998. Never updated. Ineffective search. Limited archives.

Killer interface, though. A box for a message and a button to send.

It is simple. It works.

It is here now.

Web 2.0 papware is for generating content, not generating action. It is for organizing dates, not organizing cities.

It is horrible in crisis. Email is vastly superior. We should have thrown our weight behind email.

The Web 2.0 crowd needs to understand that people facing death, homelessness, and impovershment are not good beta testers.