O Brave New Web 2.0 World, That Has Such Transparency In It

Yeah, for the record, I had nothing to do with the naming of "Seattlest" either. If I had a dime for the times I've had to spell it out for people...

Yep, those sites probably aren't for me but I was hoping for a coffee pow-wow about what they might be for others. Erik, maybe I'll be able to drag that out of you anyhow. ;-) You proved me wrong on my snarky comment about being a bunch of guys with your female-skewed numbers, so maybe you could prove me wrong in thinking that "relatedness" as generated by computers OR people I don't know on the interwebs can be as meaningful to me as having people who I know far better give me that kind of information--that's where I think the line is drawn for the current direction that I see 43 Things and All Consuming taking.

That's the opinion I developed while at Amazon--that "you might like this" from people who don't know me well is not rich enough--it has nothing to do with "bitterness". C'mon guys, I'd give the full mea culpa on Seattlest if you shift my thinking about other people finding long-term value in this (because clearly y'all spend lots of time thinking about that).

Let's not have it come down to a lost cause.

Aw Mike - I can still call you Mike can't I, since I knew you before the whole Michael van Baker transformation - you know I'll still say howdy when I see you forlornly holding your spot in Victrola. I'm there every 2-3 weeks after getting my hair cut next door, and hell, it takes those good people 10 minutes to pull a shot of espresso so what else am I going to do while I wait.

You know we love all the attention even if comes from a blog named "seattlest" talking shit about bad domain names. Kettle, meet Mr. Pot.

Hmmph! Josh rarely comes into the Victrola and it's never to see me, so his threat to avoid me in the future rings hollow. [Hollow ringing sound.]

Again, Erik, Josh, nothing personal. There are a lot of site names I don't particularly care for. People just don't ask first!

But consider that no one complains about something they care nothing about, and take heart. People who have privacy concerns may be voicing a feeling of being left out of the social networking whirl. And in some ways be barred from online services. That's something I hope we'll all keep in mind as we move ahead.

Courtney, my guess is that these sites probably aren't for you... it takes a bit of the wacky "I love showing up as the number 3 result for 'erik' in Google and having my family find out all of my secrets via a computer! Woohoo!" type of person... which, as we now know, there are a lot of, myself included. :) I'd still be up for a coffee at Vita if you just wanted to catch up though.

I know this is a crazy idea, but we don't actually spend time trying to convince people to use the websites who aren't interested in using them. We've found that people who don't like to share their private lives on the interweb are a really poor audience to try and attract to sites all about sharing your private life on the interweb.

So you won't see us offering free Starbucks cards (or even a cup of coffee with an unenthusiastic ex-coworker) to try and get people to post on the site. And like you said, despite being "generally great" (generally, thanks!) we lack the ability "to actually personally connect with other people in a way that makes sense to people other than them". Ouch!

So you, Courtney Nash, pretty much seem like a lost cause, at least as far as All Consuming is concerned. If you didn't get the double entendre of the site name, I think it is probably all downhill from there.

Josh and Erik gave perfectly good defenses, I just wanted to say to Courtney that there's no need to be bitter about the Personalization team at Amazon anymore, we lost the war. While Amazon knows pretty well my taste in things (dare I say it, based on what I rated, reviewed, or purchased), almost everything I see on the main pages of their site is irrelevant to me. Instead of being put there by personalization algorithms written by (yes, mostly male) software development teams, it gets put there by humans who have souls and website space to sell to the marketing departments of giant publishers, major record labels, and Hollywood studios. Victory to the non-borgs!

P.S. Andrej doesn't work here.

Hi Josh and Eric, I've been waiting for y'all to show up (Erik, I do recall you, not sure I'd grok the face in a crowd). My loud mouth has gotten me called out. :-) It is true, my initial impressions are negative, and I haven't yet been won over by 43 Things or All Consuming. (I might not ever be, being a much more private, don't like to hang many personal details out on the Internet laundry line, type of person.) But I'd be curious to hear more that might convince me otherwise. I'm down for a friendly round of "convince me I'm wrong." If any 43 Thing folks are game, drop me an email for coffee some time. seattlest_courtney at speakeasy dot net

Hey Courtney! I've seen you a couple times in the last couple months (Space Travel Store opening was one of them) but didn't say "hi" since I didn't think you'd remember me... but anyway, I do understand your comments. A couple responses to that and other things...

You're right that we don't do much marketing and don't try to please everyone. But we do try to have the right spirit about things... which is why I'm shocked to hear such a negative reaction.

All Consuming was originally started in 2002 when I was still at Amazon and wanted to focus on people instead of products... the name was based on a (weak) pun and was originally intended more in the "all consuming passion" sense. I know people do take it the other way... and think that's okay too. We are what we eat, after all. (Is that the kind of language that sucks the soul?)

Why not honestly and openly explore the connection between our sense of self and the stuff we read, listen to, watch, eat, etc... it clearly is a personal thing, which is why we only have people on the homepage and no products at all. On the product detail pages too, people are front and center. It's all about people and sharing the things that you like to read, listen to, watch, eat, and otherwise consume. We even took off all the buy buttons.

Yeah, we're all boys, but we do consciously try to keep things non-boy-centric whenever possible. We do have a larger percentage of female users than most of these kinds of websites and talk a lot amongst ourselves about ways to make this more useful for both male and female users.

I see that Josh pointed to the publicity policy post too...

Well that's the last time I bother talking to Michael Baker at Victorla! Damn, if it wasn't the slowest coffee shop in Seattle I'd be in and out with out falling into his pithy little gossip trap.

We've actually written something somewhat intelligent (I think) about the publicity/privacy angle. You can see it here.

And when Courtney declares her intention to go to the ballet this weekend, basically just demonstrated the whole idea behind All Consuming: letting friends and strangers know what you are interested in.

Lastly, The Robot Co-op may be "a bunch of guys" (gosh, sorry for the penis!) but it's a bit silly to say 43 Things is "a bunch of guys". 43 Things is the cumulative dreams of 220,000 people, skewing female, by the way.

Was it? Back on Nov. 30, the Robot Co-op blog mentions Erik [Benson] building it.

If I remember correctly, allconsuming was a stand-alone site until it was aquired by 43__, right?

Damn this story made me want to get my Mac SE out of mothballs.

Maggie: thanks for chiming in. Just to be clear, I've known Josh for a long time, and I'm hoping that people will come by and check out the sites for themselves.

I thought of the alternate idea of consuming that you mention, but as my choice of "alternate" implies, I don't think that's a) the first concept that pops into the head, and b) let's just see what the ratio of purchased/borrowed products turns out to be. (I'm using the word "shopping" a little broadly, I realize.)

For me, the privacy issues cloud the service potential, which is not at all limited to 43 Somethings. I know this is the kind of thing the Robots think about; I just want to know what other people are thinking.

Courtney: oops, I meant that first bit more in response to the orginal post. It reads that the purpose of All Consuming was that "the web community can directly inspire/influence your purchasing decisions" and that you can make explicit your "shopping history." As an avid library user, I merely wanted to point out that "consuming" doesn't necessarily mean "buying stuff." :)

Maggie: In fact, I wasn't thinking of it in an actual purchasing context (e.g. conspicuous consumption or Amazon.com transactions), but was instead trying to convey that the word "consume" is such a soul-less way of describing all the ways we interact with art, media, music, etc. It is absurdly reductionist to me, and has a borg-like patina to it. But then, I'd not caught the double-meaning, of which I like the flip side (being consumed by something--I do hope to be consumed by the ballet this weekend, drowning in a sea of swishy costumes and pointed feet).

And, the 43 Things guys are generally great, so I'm not trying to poke personal fingers there, but I am skeptical of whether their perspective will encompass a larger audience over time. (Then again, they may not be concerned with that, which is fair.)

Well, I am a bit biased as the Robots are my friends, but the thing I like about All Consuming, as opposed to say Library Thing, is that I feel the emphasis is not on purchasing/shopping and instead on sharing about things you like to read, watch, eat and enjoy. I get almost all my books and movies from the library...Library Thing seems to be just for listing things you OWN, not things you are "consuming." I suppose it is easy to assume it is about purchasing because of their Amazon connection, but as a user I haven't felt like that was its purpose.

I like name of the site for its double meaning--how many times have you felt consumed by a book or a movie because you were so engrossed? Are we listing the things we consume, or the things that consume us?

I guess I don't have an opinion on the privacy thing either, except that if I don't want people to know that I consumed a box of triscuits and a can of easy cheese last night, I'm certainly not going to post that information on the internet. Oh...oops.

not Dan: Well, yeah, some saw it coming a mile away. Not just Erik, but almost all of the 43 Things guys (Josh, Andrei, Dan ) were pretty much the core of the Amazon.com "Personalization" development team, so that totally shaped their current thinking and direction. It also shaped, in my opinion, their inability to actually personally connect with other people in a way that makes sense to people other than them, but then again apparently 200,043 people disagree with me on that one as well.

Courtney: Yeah, that was a bizarre choice for a name, especially since they couldn't get allconsuming.com. But then the Robots are fond of not doing marketing, so the "guys in a room" aspect can trump common sense. I think the Wisdom of Crowds also covers groupthink.

not Dan: Bah! I *knew* we'd covered 43 Things before, but Google let me down when I searched for it. I'm not as bothered by the source of the privacy loss being a large or small business (I just discussed the Robot Co-op because they're a local face), I'm just wondering (as that earlier post does), who's it benefit most?

Didn't you guys see this coming a year ago...

I'll confess that I haven't got an opinion on the privacy aspect of this whole Web 2.0 hullabaloo, but the whole "All Consuming" thing irritates the hell out of me. Now I'm pretty geeky, but the thought of a bunch of guys (and let's face it, 43 things is pretty much a bunch of guys) sitting around thinking it would be great to "connect" us all based on what we "Consume" (replete will probably lots of borg jokes) just sucks the soul out of anything within striking distance. What am I consuming? Jesus, what am I, a trash compactor? I'm reading, I'm thinking, I'm enjoying music, I'm savoring food, I'll be seeing the ballet on Friday. Will I consume a ballet concert? I hardly think so. Please, 43 Things, don't reduce all these human pleasures down to one very unsatisfying verb.