The rant that follows is offered with incredible love and respect, though some irony. We were big on irony in the Sixties.
I am a faithful listener to The Gillmor Gang, which I use as a motivator and source of comedy while getting my heart rate up in the gym. It’s an amalgam of my favorite tech egos yelling over one another. (But I’ve already said that).
This week, they had a guest, Loic LeMeur, founder of Seesmic, which just bought Twhirl. Twhirl is a desktop Twitter client.
There. I’ve just given you all the links, but I’ve constructed a sentence of which –after the word “founder” — no one with whom I will be spending the afternoon (at a ritzy Derby Day party at the Arizona Biltmore) could understand one word, even AFTER they click on all the links. Or care.
And this is what the guys on the call (yes, all guys) called the “Grandma Tax” with great disdain. Despite the fact that I am as big an early adopter as Robert Scoble (and I always have to uninstall shit to make my laptop work again, just as he does). Despite the fact that Steve Gillmor always lets me call in to his other show, “Newsgang Live.” When I hear the electronic voice say “Mute off,” I always get a little feeling of excitement and acceptance. But I know I am not on THE CALL. THE REAL CALL. The one where they discuss the TRULY important things, like whether Mesh is real, and whether Twitter is the gateway to the network.
Gentlemen, it is. Twitter is the gateway to the network. Any grandma can tell you that. That’s why a million or more people are already using it. And when Loic gets finished doing what he is doing to Twhirl, which IMHO is all the right things, it will be an even better gateway. Could be replaced by Friendfeed, as Scoble says, but it’s the same concept. Simple and useful.
Simple little Twitter can let people who still don’t know what RSS is experience blogs. Simple little Twitter, with its single attribute, the ability to let you choose and listen to your friends, could be the way people share photos and other media in the future/ (Yes, Dave Winer, payloads).
My jury’s still out on how quickly people will integrate video into their Twitters or blog comments, although I know that many grandmas are on MS Messenger and Yahoo Messenger with video chat and webcams given to them so they can see their grandchildren.
By the way, during the first hour of the call, they hardly let Loic speak, even though he was the invited guest. And because he’s French and a gentleman, he sat silent until his moment came. If had been any of the others, he would have just leapt in.
SO: it’s even more important than keep it simple, guys. To make social media mainstream, you have to make it useful. When something is perceived immediately to be useful, and it is not daunting, even Grandma will learn it.
Take a sweater. It might be cold later. Keep in touch. Love, Grandma
