Eric Rice

Elaborate? - Marco (aureliusmaximus)

I see you griping all the time about "conventional wisdom" online. I don't see where you get that we think we're conventional OR have wisdom. But, whatever keeps you entertained. All that sets us apart from other human beings is we're early adopters and we're highly passionate about technology and online stuff. - Robert Scoble

Translation: lately you've gotten dangerously close to a reputation of a "Donna." All negative, no positive. Is that really the reputation online that you want? I want the old Eric Rice back who was building stuff and telling us about the cool stuff and narratives he was building. Not the one who is just going to tell us how screwed up we all are. I can read Valleywag for that. - Robert Scoble

Our 'conventional wisdom' is this 'being early' thing as social law. 'Adopting' is not the same thing as 'Adapting'. - Eric Rice

I don't know where you're getting that, but being early onto social networking services does have its advantages, particularly if your goal is to hang out with other early adopters like me. Look at FriendFeed. It built in some early adopter rewards that'll be hard to overcome. Same with TechMeme. Same with Google. The earlier you are on these systems, the more advantages you have. Anyone want to buy a four-letter domain? - Robert Scoble

Ahahahahahahahahah jesus hell dude, where *have* you been? - Eric Rice

Eric: I went outside yesterday. It polluted my brain. :-) So I guess we're just going to get this new Eric, huh? Sigh. I miss the one who'd tell me how cool Second Life is and show me his new stuff. - Robert Scoble

I think Scoble just proved Eric's point. - Nathan Rein

You've got 20,000 people to tend to. It's a lot. - Eric Rice

The fact that you bring up Second Life shows you're kinda like a year behind on me. - Eric Rice

Eric: a lot more than that come through. 400,000 a month on blog, 27,000 on Twitter, 13,000 on FriendFeed. But yet I have time for you. :-) - Robert Scoble

I bring up Second Life because I remember the Eric that was passionate about showing me new stuff, not in ripping into a community for its indiscretions. I guess you've learned some negative behaviors and I miss the old Eric. It's been a while since you've added some value to communities I hang out in rather than just pointing out how sad and sorry our lot is. - Robert Scoble

And where do I learn these negative behaviors from, suddenly? - Eric Rice

Bringing up Second Life is appropriate in this context. When you were involved and showing off Second Life there was a lot more focus on what can be done and the potential. Now, although you do show off some cool new stuff there is a lot more of what is broken and wrong with out much focus on where we go from there. You have forward vision others don't so we may need a hint of what we should be looking at. - Goldie Katsu

Eric: gaming communities where it's "cool" to rip apart people and things? Digg? Same. Valleywag? Same. Reading Donna? Same. I already know that passionate people are different than non-passionates. I got that in high school where the geeks weren't popular but the stoners were. That didn't make me excited about hanging out with the stoners though. - Robert Scoble

I'm just not chickenshit to avoid slaughtering sacred cows is all. - Eric Rice

robert: can't believe you just said "The earlier you are on these systems, the more advantages you have." - that statement alone proved eric's point on this thread and the other slap the early adopters in the face so they'll snap out of it and realize that reputation and winning in their echo chamber is not what life is all about - er ftw :-p - mike "glemak" dunn

@goldie right i'm coming at it from current events. I gave up ages ago on the intellectual property and DMCA side of thinking, because in general, the negatives of the industry being snarky about furries and flying penises far outweighed issues that affect us. Same with things like SXSW Music panels and lack of blogger rep (props to Ewan, tho) from a couple years ago. - Eric Rice

Mike: I'm just giving you the facts. If you bought a one-word domain years ago now you are sitting on $100,000 to $2 million. If you started blogging years ago you'll have thousands of inbound links, so Google will display you higher than someone who starts blogging this morning. If you have been working on online communities since the 1980s, you probably have thousands of Facebook friends. Someone who starts out today won't. - Robert Scoble

@robert making a social judgement against a gaming community FIRST vs. looking at what's deeper there, is EXACTLY why I've become cranky over all. This pattern has been repeated SO MUCH that is makes me sick. You have to get filthy dirty hands on and have ridiculous, dedicated patience-- sometimes quietly, to get to the meat of it all. This doesn't matter though, we live in a techmeme world. - Eric Rice

Translation: being early online DOES get you some major advantages. But that's off the point about Eric not adding value anymore. He does start conversations, but so does Donna. I just am not sure if that's the repuation that Eric wants. Maybe it is. Valleywag is hiring. :-) - Robert Scoble

Heh. Techmeme is slow. This is now a Twitter/FriendFeed world. - Robert Scoble

/me googles this Donna thing - Eric Rice

The advantages depend on what you expect to see from the services and what you see as an advantage. Early adoption can lead to greater visibility - if that is an advantage. It can also lead to greater distraction. There is a bit of shifting gears when I go from unplugged to plugged in mode. It is in many ways a continuation of the technology/culture divide of haves and have-nots but rather than being web/computer access it has moved on to something else. - Goldie Katsu

In the topsy turvey world of the socnets Scoble chastises people for being smug. Did I follow the White Rabbit down the hole, or what? We're asked to take the opinions of the highly followed as gospel. If you're as highly followed conversation may ensue. For the peanut gallery our options are to "shut the f up," get Twitter blacklisted, or (my fav) get reminded how connected the priests of the socnets are. Scobe, u haven't told us how many friends and contacts you have in the past 30sec. Getting antsy? - Jim Stanger via fftogo

@mike thanks for that, yeah I'm still teaching about what a blog is and recently, a flickr tutorial or two, amongst people that easily will challenge why they want to do that. Wacky. - Eric Rice

@ Robert .. Now if we could get Google Reader to go 'real time' ....??? - Charlie Anzman

Eric for context on Donna see http://friendfeed.com/e/1dd758... - Robert Scoble

Jim: STFU. Thanks. Geesh. - Robert Scoble

This whole conversation is just tiring. Some people won't ever be remotely wrong, some people won't evolve (for better or for worse) and that's just the worst kinda of life to lead. At least I know firsthand what the flow of positivity and negativity flowing through my veins is like. There's just not a need to defend myself and parade around my Each And Every Single Data Point Around Ad Infinitum. - Eric Rice

What I've learned is that taking a negative tack can make you feel better, BUT a) it doesn't make anyone feel good about the topic, and b) it doesn't make anybody feel good about you. - Dewald Pretorius

Forgive my sluggishness but I am still trying to figure out what exactly we are talking about - by conventional wisdom do you mean inside FF? If so I'm not sure what the "outside world" not agreeing with the "early adopter" community proves? By granting that there is a segment of society called "early adopters" aren't we automatically granting that, by nature, their conventional wisdom won't match everyone else's? - Marco (aureliusmaximus)

@Jim, yeah when the crazy uncles started blocking and banning people in social effing media, that's the sign that our world changed. I would never in a million years consider banning someone unless it was useless scroll. I don't care how batshit insane someone is. That's what we built upon (not batshit insanity, but well, lol, you know what I mean). - Eric Rice

Eric: I'm wrong all the time. It just gets tiring when someone is telling me I'm wrong all the time without bringing something else to the table. You used to bring a lot more to the table. Lately? It's all about how your non-social-networking-friends find us all lame. I already know that. I don't need to have it shoved in my face every day to realize that most people think geeks and people who spend all day online are weird and stupid. - Robert Scoble

So are you doing anything about it? - Eric Rice

The thing that many confuse in these discussions is that a personal opinion is just that. It isn't right or wrong. But the way things work now is that in order to get noticed we tend to write "tabloid" type headlines. While this can work out fine if it is followed by an insightful post, this can work disastrous when commenting using friendfeed, Twitter or other short messaging discussion platforms. I say keep the discussion going, but know when something is true or something is just said ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

Eric: I always am trying to learn something new. I travel the world more than anyone I know and meet both geeks and normal people who remind me that we're way ahead of most people in adopting new technologies. I regularly meet people with old laptops using Windows 2000 and Office 2000 and nothing else. - Robert Scoble

Eric - so getting back to your original comment -- you are alluding to some cool stuff! I'd like to hear about it. You say your outlook has changed so much, and then leave us wondering how or why. Write it up, unless part of your new thinking is that you can't be bothered. And in that case, please tell me so I can stop waiting to learn more. - Phil Glockner

J.Phil and Marco, I will, I wasn't expecting a simple comment to start drama, but apparently, there's some nerves that can be hit. - Eric Rice

Non-geeks all have computers now and they "get" Facebook. Send them there first. And you best not start trash talking about my 5 year old, 800mghz. 12" PowerBook running Panther, Scoble. Or else ......... - Tom Novak

Eric - lol understand - thought it was an interesting comment and was curious about the specifics behind it but didn't expect this either - Marco (aureliusmaximus)

eric: you're phrasing was probably too... against something rather than pushing what you wanted, or at least, many times people get caught in the negative understanding of something faster than the positive approach. i'd still like to see conventional knowledge defined - Ruben Llibre

I was an early adopter of "a/s/l?" What does that get me? - moo Money

@moo Retro Lulz - Eric Rice

Eric: this isn't the first time you've posted something like this. I'm seeing a pattern and it's started to bug me the way that Donna bugs me. If that's your goal, great. Success! But is that really the reputation you're going for online? - Robert Scoble

Course you thought it would start drama Eric, that's why you said it. :) - Bwana

@moo - a prison sentence if you try it in a chat room now. - Phil Glockner

I like the echo chamber in FriendFeed.. but I'm happy to avoid it in google reader - Stefan Hayden

Once again, I need another option than like but let me explain. While this exchange has been a Robert v Eric slugfest, it has shown that this network is just as human as any other. I was starting to get a tad worried at all of this "maturity". ;) - Mathew A. Koeneker

so your reputation = "what scoble thinks about you"? - Christian Crumlish

I guess in all this he said she said what floats to the top for me is that Scoble at least indirectly makes it clear that he's been shaping or scripting an online persona and is chastising Eric for not doing likewise? Did I miss something? If that is fairly accurate-then we have this big push for transparency so I can show you my mask clearly? WTF? - Mark Forman

mark: bing bing bing ;) i've always liked robert's passionate approach to shiny new things so nothing against his approach but i've always paid close attention to eric because he's almost always way ahead of the curve - i think of him as the david bowie of digital media, but thats just me :-p - mike "glemak" dunn

I would say eric more like the brian eno but I digress... - Mark Forman

Hmm. Possibly the most pointless argument of the day. /me golf-claps - Ian Betteridge