Shh. We’re reflecting over here.

November 30, 2007 —

There’s something like a million blog posts jammed in my head trying to get out, so I’m going to write carefully, so as not to break anything.

As a rule, phrases coined by Alex Iskold piss me off.

Today, a client mentioned that we’re in the digestion phase of the web. I didn’t realize people used that kind of talk IRL, so I don’t think I was properly prepared to make fun of him at the time.

I get it, you, me, and we are letting this whole web 2.o thing sink in. We’re in a digestion phase. Innovation doesn’t occur in the gut, and that’s why we aren’t seeing it right now.

“We are not quite ready yet for many more new ideas…”

Okay, that’s distracting. But even with that amount of stupid inside Alex’ post, I don’t think he was suggesting that the world now has free license to draft behind proven models like facebook while we sit back and wait for web 3.o to roll into town.

It’s true, the innovators have given us all clear blueprints of how to build our very own web 2.o thing. Facebook has friends and a login wall. I, too, must have friends and a login wall. Digg has vote up / vote down buttons. I must have the buttons.

More new ideas can wait. Right?

That’s no dragon. That’s just some big, flying dog.

Clearly, there’s a rush to tie the popular ideas to the unpopular niches. Implementations for social networks and digg-style things appear to be infinite. No harm, no foul. As long as the speculators leave some room for individual perspective.

And while all the new entrants flood the stage of constant partial attention, the first in the field may even make the jump to truly useful. Some already have. Others are trying to swing over the evil pit right now. (Insert your own mental image of a vine, a gator pond, and an 8-bit guy wearing a facebook tshirt.)

Anyway. Just because you’re reading about other people’s opinions of other people’s opinions of the Kindle doesn’t mean the world is slothing on the couch waiting for the Semantic Web to roll in.

I can stop quoting stupid if you can.