Brian Oberkirch is one of my favorite bloggers for several reasons: 1) he’s from nawlins (that’s “New Orleans”); 2) he’s one helluva writer; and 3) he’s always thinking really cool thoughts. And so, when I read Brian saying that he feels like the internet conversation is becoming Gumbo ya-ya — well, you just gotta love it.
What, you ask is “gumbo ya-ya”?
Quoting:
“I’ve whinged before that everything online just feels like gumbo ya-ya, everyone talking at once. Techmeme & my trusty feed reader just aren’t doing it anymore. I’ve gone through a few rounds of blowing up all my feeds and adding them back. What I’ve hit on lately, and what feels right, is just following those who I think are the smartest, most courageous, savvy, inspiring people. Sometimes they blog, but more often I’m following their bookmarks, what events they pick, books they recommend.”
Yep - Brian’s getting implicit. He goes on to talk about FriendFeed, SocialThing and Jaiku - all of which (collectively) I’m wrapping my head around. But the problem is there: we live in a distributed land of abundant information — and reaching any level of insight on that raw data demands that we develop effective tools to help us. (And NO we do not need YAP ["yet another platform"].)
(note to self: Get Brian to this year’s Defrag - he had to miss last year because of a client engagement.)
