The Cute Cat Theory, Activism and CommYou

[jducoeur]

Thanks to jikharra for the pointer to this very interesting article, adapted from a conference speech. It starts out making some fairly conventional observations, but the main thrust of the article is about the fact that the test of any good social tool is whether it gets used for political activism. (And that a useful tool needs to be useful for both banal *and* political purposes -- the banal ones provide cover for the political ones.)

It's fascinating food for thought, and I'm going to have to chew on its ramifications for CommYou. It may well push in some stories that had been relegated to the backlog. For example, viral invitation: conversations that are nominally hidden and private, but where invitees can invite others into the discussion. That one's been sitting in the list from the beginning, but I hadn't been paying much attention to it because I didn't see an important use case. But it's nicely suited to some activist scenarios, where you want to be able to get the word out without something actually being *public*.

It's things like this that make this project so much fun. I confess, I have no bloody idea how CommYou is actually going to get used, but I'm increasingly sure that, if I don't screw up, people are going to come up with all sorts of uses that I haven't yet imagined...

Comments

[dlevey.livejournal.com]

Sort of a "whisper to..." mode?

[loosecanon.livejournal.com]

yes, that's a good way to say it, though not one in my own vernacular. I'm not well versed in "net lingo", I just use it to stay in touch with distant friends and the like. Luddite-speak can cause confusion!

[dlevey.livejournal.com]

I don't know from what the kids are calling it right now. I was just thinking of a "real" conversation, and what I'd call it then.