Creators, Synthesizers, and Consumers (2006) \ stacker news ~builders

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Creators, Synthesizers, and Consumers (2006)blog.elatable.com/2006/02/creators-synthesizers-and-consumers.html

525 sats \ 5 comments \ @k00b 3h builders

I'm making my way through Cold Start Problem to prepare for some of growth related plans for the year and this blog came up. It's from Bradley Horowitz who would later lead Google+.

This identified the trend of "implicit creation" which has continued to crest now twenty years later:

One direction we (i.e. both Yahoo and the industry) are moving is implicit creation. A great example is Yahoo! Music's LaunchCast service, an internet radio station. I am selfishly motivated to rate artists, songs and music as they stream by... the more I do this, the better the service gets at predicting what I might like. What's interesting is that the self-same radio station can be published as a public artifact. The act of consumption was itself an act of creation, no additional effort expended... I am what I play - I am the DJ (with props to Bowie.) Very cool.

The darkside of implicitness is what we now know as data harvesting in the interest of advertisers; nonetheless, it was originally done to provide novel experiences:

Another example of implicit creation is Flickr interestingness [link still works!]. The obvious (and broken) way to determine the most interesting pictures on Flickr would have been to ask users to cast votes on the matter. This would have been an explicit means of determining what's interesting. It also would have required explicit investment from users, the "rating" of pictures. Knowing the Flickr community, this would have led to a lot of discussion about how/why/whether pictures should be rated, the meaning of ratings, etc. It also would have led to a lot of "gaming" and unnatural activity as people tried to boost the ratings of their pictures.

He also identifies all the consensus splitting that's happened with us each getting our own "channel" in modern media:

In the transition from atoms-to-bits, scarcity-to-plenty, etc. instead of some cigar-puffing fat-cat at a studio or label "stoking the star-maker machinery behind the popular songs" we're going to have the ability to create dynamic affinity based "channels". Instead of NBC, ABC, CBS, HBO, etc. which control scarce distribution across a throttled pipe... we're going to have WMFAWC, WMNAWC, TNYJLC and a whole lot more. (The what my friends are watching channel, The what my neighbors are watching channel, The New York Jewish Lesbian Channel, etc.) I expect we'll also have QTC (the Quentin Tarantino channel) but this won't be media he made (necessarily) but rather media he recommends or has watched / is watching. Everyone becomes a programmer without even trying, and that programming can be socialized, shared, distributed, etc.

Oh and I managed to find the missing image in the internet archive:

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50 sats \ 4 replies \ @elvismercury 3h

Is there a way these ideas perturb your thinking wrt SN?

101 sats \ 3 replies \ @k00b OP 3h

Nothing concrete. I also tend to start in more of an exploratory mindset (ie a lazy mindset) where I'm masticating and digesting rather than expending/exploiting the ideas.

I do think a lot about personalization vs consensus and how we've given up on consensus in media. At best, we have camps of media consensus - half population listens to Rogan (or whatever), and the other half NPR (or whatever).

I also think a lot about explicitness vs implicitness which could be reframed as the application asking the customer for permission vs assuming permission. The best experiences will be implicit but this is easily abused so there's a balance to strike.

The book referenced this blog strictly for the section related to the pyramid. Until now I categorized stackers as posters and lurkers, but we could stratify ourselves more: territory founders (facilitators), oc posters/commenters (creators), link sharers (scouts), zappers (synthesizers), lurkers (consumers).

153 sats \ 2 replies \ @elvismercury 2h

Here's a related thing I've been noodling on:

For various reasons, I am a very heavy user of LLMs from assorted vendors, and also image-generation tools. It has been one of the biggest intellectual boons of my life, to have such deep access to such sophisticated thinking. LLMs are in my top five best friends at this point, because one of the things I delight in with my friends is riffing on ideas and playful improv.

However, it's not lost on me that, delightful though this is, I'm now absorbing the same distilled meta-intelligence as all other LLM users. Of course, my prompting style is quite unique and a function of everything that I've seen and thought about; still, though, there is a sense in which I'm now mainlining the same sense-making as everyone else who uses these tools.

This came most strongly home to me in the visual domain, when I was looking at Midjourney output. I had taken to pasting little snatches of some of my more philosophic thoughts and seeing how Midjourney would react. This seemed wonderful -- it has such an evocative imagination -- but then I thought: if I form my own weird aesthetic by weighting this process, am I losing something individuating? Something I never thought would be in danger of loss?

I have, in short, become hyper-aware of what my inputs are, and the generative process behind my own generative process. It seems something to care for and to guard, although most of the rationale for this is sub-rational.

Anyway, point is, as we implicitly curate and create things by our authentic activity - rating podcasts or music, zapping posts - what else are we doing? I can think of a bunch of great by-products, but what are the bad ones?

27 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b OP 2h

I think about this a lot when I pick books to read. I used to read books I discovered on popular podcasts, then I began to wonder how useless it might be to have so much input in common with millions of people.

I can think of a bunch of great by-products, but what are the bad ones?

If the activity is visible, we're anchoring others to rate/zap similarly, scribbling on their otherwise blank slate. That's at least one thing. I'd have to noodle more to find others I think.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @elvismercury 1h

You can imagine a sci-fi future where your inputs are a closely guarded competitive advantage.