gadget fatigue & the view from here

there’s been a lot of talk around my neighborhood in recent weeks about people’s dissatisfaction with recent vox interface design releases, culminating lately in some notable member defections– by no means the first or last of their kind, simply the latest, though sizable, wave– which can feel to those of us who remain behind like vital rents in the communal fabric we’re engaged in weaving. I’m not altogether certain how I feel about the current sea-change– I mean, the departures do affect me, I feel, like others, the ozone remaindered in their wake, but I’m undecided entirely how worked up I care to get about it all.

because I’ve so been here before. and before and before and before. in web years, I am one thousand years old.

the persistent problem with new media is that “new” modifier. after awhile the hot new thing cools off, and geek exodus ensues– bright and engaging minds inevitably depart in pursuit of the next compelling venue. the avant garde ebbs and then… well, after that only time will tell what happens next– if the business plan is sufficiently well-grounded, the userbase broad and stable enough, the gadget perseveres and becomes the norm, customary tool of the masses. to some extent the tenor of the conversations may change, a general and perhaps subtle proletarianization of the media. inevitably this affects our relationship with the medium, because what we do here is integrally connected to the company we keep. but better or worse I for one cannot say. the writing we do here may be organically interwoven with the words of the community in which it dwells, but we also write for ourselves, as individuals, down through the small hours of the night or in the quiet bright of afternoon. while it’s true that much momentum is made by reference back and forth and the subdural conversations threaded through comments, it is still, as it has ever been, just another skin on that thing we have been doing online for so many years now: writing our thoughts into the ether.

for me this remains a good place and way to do it. for me, whispering into the dark and half-light continues to have its appeal. this skin, this vox incarnation of the micromegaphone for thought, continues to feel elegant, easy, and right– for me, for now.