Leo Laporte Is PIssed At Buzz, The World, Everything

Leo Laporte had set things up so that his Google Buzz was reposted to Twitter, and then somehow the set-up failed, and 15 days or so of his ‘show notes’ had not been public, or at least had not been reposted to Twitter.

But no one pinged him to say ‘Where’s the notes?’

Buzz Kill : LOL: The Life of Leo

No one noticed.

Not even me.

It makes me feel like everything I’ve posted over the past four years on Twitter, Jaiku, Friendfeed, Plurk, Pownce, and, yes, Google Buzz, has been an immense waste of time. I was shouting into a vast echo chamber where no one could hear me because they were too busy shouting themselves. All this time I’ve been pumping content into the void like some chatterbox Onan. How humiliating. How demoralizing.

Thank God the content I deem most important, my Internet and broadcast radio shows, still stand. I believe in what I’m doing there, and have been very fortunate to have found an audience. I’m pretty sure I would have heard from people if there had been 16 days of dead silence there. Hell, if we miss one show I get hundreds of emails. But I feel like I’ve woken up to a bad social media dream in terms of the content I’ve put in others’ hands. It’s been lost, and apparently no one was even paying attention to it in the first place.

I should have been posting it here all along. Had I been doing so I’d have something to show for it. A record of my life for the last few years at the very least. But I ignored my blog and ran off with the sexy, shiny microblogs. Well no more. I’m sorry for having neglected you Leoville. From now on when I post a picture of a particularly delicious sandwich I’m posting it here. When I complain that Sookie is back with Bill, you’ll hear it here first. And the show notes for my shows will go here, too.

Social media, I gave you the best years of my life, but never again. I know where I am wanted. Screw you Google Buzz. You broke my heart.

The world moves at a slower pace than the surface of social tools suggests. This is not a waste of time, it is the weight of time.

So the message is that microstreaming isn’t as engaging as blogging, in Leo’s estimation. But Leo confuses ‘social media’ with Buzz’s take on microblogging, and blames the implementation of Buzz for causing his whopping dose of angst.

The connectedness that comes from streaming is not obliterated by a few days — even a few weeks — of silence. I could take a month off and people would still feel connected to me when I came back. And I wouldn’t worry if no one pinged me and asked what was I up to.

What we are up to online is not immediacy, like Polaroid pictures. We are building connection, belonging, and shared meaning, and that takes time. Although streaming apps seem highly immediate, their sphere of action is not.

Sure, on a news basis information passes through the stream-o-sphere quickly, like mouth radio. But our connections build like neurons, like learning to play the guitar or picking up another language. Slowly, day-by-day.

So don’t despair, Leo. The world moves at a slower pace than the surface of social tools suggests. This is not a waste of time, it is the weight of time.

related articles

Recent comments

Blog comments powered by Disqus