Comments on: Of technophiles, social networks, telecoms and neo-Luddites…

By: Heidi Cool

Heidi Cool — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 03:42:59 +0000

I think it is all about finding the right tool for the right job. Choose your goal then determine if it can be reached using a hammer, a pneumatic nail gun or a hadron collider. It’s not so much about what’s new or cool as what works. Sometimes its the new MX1000 machine that goes bing, sometimes its the hand crank apple-peeler corer whose design has remain unchanged in 100 years.

By: Robert Sanzalone

Robert Sanzalone — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 03:24:29 +0000

Super article Wayne! Thanks very much for the mention!

Yes, what you said was totally true on so many levels. I certainly learned a lesson by the Chatterous episode. It was like asking everyone to go to the party three houses down the block and no one moves. Everyone is fine have the party right where they were… and in this case it was Skype.

Skype started out as being the common denominator for my network. We started a chat room at a Gnomedex conference a few years ago by screaming across the conference room asking each other what chat client they used. EVERYONE used a different client except one.. Skype. Not that it was each of our favorite, but because it was the only one we ALL had, we decided to use it as our base of contact with each other.

I’m not sure where XMPP, Jabber or whatever the next shiny object will be. All I know is whatever is the one most people will be on, is the one most people will use.. no matter how shiny the others are.

By: Wayne Smallman

Wayne Smallman — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 22:13:21 +0000

Hi Ruth, I agreed with what you’re saying in principle, but you misunderstand me.

Change is always good. But change for the sake of change is — to paraphrase a very English saying — no good to man nor beast.

You might want to read my thoughts on what technology is…

By: Ruth Seeley

Ruth Seeley — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 20:05:58 +0000

What I hear you saying is, ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’

If there wasn’t a bit of the Luddite in all of us, we’d never get anything done.

By: Wayne Smallman

Wayne Smallman — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 13:07:59 +0000

Hi guys! Thanks for the comments.

David, I suppose what we’re talking about here is convenience versus experience; forfeiting features specific to each web service for the convenience of a one-stop shop.

Andrew, maybe it’s something in the Yorkshire water?

By: Andrew

Andrew — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 12:40:45 +0000

I am kind of the same. I’m not looking for replacements for what I have, just stuff to fill the gaps.

By: David Bradley

David Bradley — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 11:36:41 +0000

I know where you’re coming from, but the whole point about early adopters is that they live up to their name. We let these guys try out all the gadgets and gizmos and tell us what’ so great, once the benefits above and beyond what one is currently using then become obvious then the rest of us migrate.

I must admit I’m kind of a neo-luddite early adopter myself, a hybrid character, I sign up, download, try out almost everything at least once, and then carry on using the original tools I was happy with. Except now that I’ve got into ping.fm there’s no way I’m going back to manual plurking and tweeting…