Alexander van Elsas

Good point. :-) - David Risley

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@Akiva: - Daniel J. Pritchett

Haven't had any nasty ones yet. I did have one: Scott Hanselman did ask me to locally host an image I sourced from his site ( it was loading from his server instead of mine). I promptly fixed it. - Roberto Bonini

1UP Daniel - Akiva Moskovitz

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Thank you ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

Alexander, you write “Social Media is just a tool, a fun playground, cool technology. But it doesn’t have all that much impact on the lives of ordinary people.” Although I agree with the general observation, I’d put this in a different context. Isn’t this the case with all advanced / elitist cultural or economic sectors? Can’t the same (low impact on the lives of ordinary people) be said about things like: astronomical theories, Joyce’s Ulysses, SAP or the LHC? All those things would not pass the First Use Question but that doesn’t pose a problem. - Benedikt Koehler

Benedikt, that’s a good question. The thing with social media (and often a lot of web 2.0 startups) is that the early adopter crowd is not asking the tough question of First Use. Yet at the same time they often tend to write about new technology as if it is the best thing ever. Simple example, Half of the Internet population probably knows about Google Search. Every new startup or technology that is innovating in the area of search is now convicted as being a “Google killer”. Sensational, but obviously unrealistic. With respect to web technology I think we can safely assume that a lot of “ordinary” users are now on the web. These people have found ways to integrate that experience into their lives. They are the target groups for services like Facebook, Twitter, Friendfeed, or any other social media service. But just because these services aim at that market doesn’t mean they can be succesful there. That’s where the first use questions are important. Not everyone knows or cares about astronomical theories, bu - Alexander van Elsas

when it comes to services that have impact on normal things in life like communication, sharing, connecting, meeting with friends and family, everyone is an expert ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

A comment from Mark Rizzn Hopkins on my post in reaction to Benedikts comment: "I think you’re right, to a certain extent, benedikt. The difference is, though, that Joyce, LHC and the other things you mention aren’t intended eventually or currently for mainstream usage (and I shudder to think of the mere thought of my neighbor using the LHC unsupervised)." - Alexander van Elsas

Alexander, as usual you got me thinking. So, you have inspired another blog post for later this week. I like the "first use" idea, but I think we can go further than that. - Rob Diana

Rob, thanks. Let me guess, second use? ;-) - Alexander van Elsas