idealistic communications rant.

Communication is about new ways of talking.

Communication is NOT about old ways of talking on new platforms.

This is an important difference, and a common mistake.

Twitter ≠ RSS.  Don’t use it exclusively for linking to your blog.

Blogging ≠ Infomercial.  Strategic ‘authenticity’ is still inauthentic.

New ways of talking create problems.  The first instinct for both writer and reader, is to apply the standards of old ways of talking, or to ignore the lessons of old ways of talking completely.

Writing emails as formal letters is an example of the former.  Ignoring the freedoms we have for sampling and remixing text when developing limitations of creative freedoms with video or audio is an example of the latter.  Both, upon reflection, don’t make a lot of sense.

New ways of talking mean new rules of talking, but they don’t necessarily mean the lessons of older modes of communication should be ignored.  If we’re using English, a beautiful phrase will likely still read as a beautiful phrase.

Phrases can have beauty online, as much as they can in a novel.  There can be art and underlying meaning to communication anywhere, if we decide not to drown it in shit.

[inspired from a lot of places, more recently Lawrence Lessig's Remix, which is very much worth reading.]