Software Everywhere — David Beers on Mobile Computing

Head over to m-trends.org and get your finger on the pulse of mobility. Rudy de Waele does the Carnival up right, pulling in another great haul of articles for this week's edition.

I appreciate the emails and comments from readers who wanted to beta test my "mobile command line" project (I call it "Serenity," by the way). It gives me encouragement that I'm not crazy for believing this is a good idea for fixing the broken mobile UI. Interesting how many Enso and QuickSilver users are out there running their computers using "Command Line 2.0." (Sorry, couldn't resist.) It may be a little while before I have something I want to show, as my project load is very heavy now and free time scarce, but if you're interested in being a beta tester feel free to drop me an email and I'll add you to my list.

One of my favorite posts from this week's Carnival doesn't have much to do directly with mobile technology or culture. But since I've been thinking about the community aspect of the 2.0 phenomenon this week I found Graham Brown's piece A new age of Digital Maoism 2.0? an interesting challenge, especially combined with Mike Mace's thoughts on the subject.

Graham cites a recent article by virtual reality pioneer Jaron Laneer:

Lanier argues in an article published in The Edge that social media, in practise, is less about the underying values of democracy and more about mob-rule—i.e. what is right is not guided by principles but by the loudest voices.

I've definitely seen the "mob rule" phenomenon happen, and the mob is capable of trampling just about anything in its path. Communities that evolve around technology enthusiasts can become particularly rough when a company tries to leap the chasm to embrace the mass market. Palm got bit by their own enthusiast community when they tried to keep their focus on expanding to a broader market while Sony developed competing products that targetted Palm's enthusiast base, which, as enthusiasts often do, demanded features that Palm didn't think the mass market would support given the additional cost. Online communities like PalmInfocenter started to fill up with power-users bashing Palm for failing to keep pace with the technology and pointing to Sony as proof of Palm's incompetence. Sony flamed out, unable to profit off of the small market of high-end PDA consumers, but while this gave a boost to Palm's business, a self-replicating culture of Palm bashing had taken root in Palm's online communities. PalmInfocenter became a stage for a kind of crass performance art that attracted the loudest, most obscene critics and readers who enjoyed the community more for its gladiator quality than for any real information that the community generated. Once a community has taken on this character, dissenting views are silenced quickly or they just wander away in disgust. At that point it's too late for a moderator to do very much about it because it just puts him at odds with the community that remains and opens him to accusations of censorship or worse, being a paid shill.

The moral of the story isn't that enthusiast forums need to be moderated to eliminate negative responses to the object of the community's enthusiasm. That will kill a viable community just as surely as a gang of bullies can. But clear and steadily enforced rules of civility need to be established. I'm not sure that self-policed systems like SlashDot's are always enough to maintain a healthy discussion where free exchange of views can flourish. Certainly, introducing one after the community has been poisoned is useless. I tend to think that enlightened leadership is the most important factor. That doesn't always have to come from someone with moderator privileges, but having backup from a moderator helps.