I also think it’s easier to interest people in social media tools if you point out they’re probably using them already, to some extent, rather than presenting it as a brave, new world.

I think it’s possible with location brokers (FireEagle/Lattitude) or things like skyhook, to autotag things when people “like” them — we just need people to use the tools that do it (been thinking round a new delicious FF plugin that uses a location service and stores the geo attention data as a tripple tag). Then there’s enough info to work on.

I’m firmly of the opinion that

From a corporate culture point of view, while the marketing/comms dept are starting to understand all this, part of the usefulness of comment registration is that it helps acheive culture shift in very traditional environments.

To get the blog up and running in the first instance, registration and other barriers act as a reassurance to the powers that be that It Will Be OK. The blog and/or marketing have often have to prove themselves in order to continue so it’s cautious first steps and successes initially. Then they can let go by degrees – especially when they realise that no one is commenting.

Maybe it’s a necessary part of the process. Like a worried parent with a child to protect, they see risk everywhere in the early days then let go in time.

SO, it’s inneresting that you feel a move away from ’selling snake oil’ and talking about it, towards ‘doing’ something with it.

Isn’t this just a sign that the mainstream are (in your vicinity anyway) getting a grasp on it for themselves… leaving you free to stop talking about it and start doing /having fun with it.

Sometimes I think we live in interesting times when all rules are out of the window. But then I think those times are going to get even more interesting in a decade or five. To resort to time metaphors, this period is sort of like the 60s – we are optimistic about the freedoms of the internet and are having a summer of love affair with social media changing the world, thwarting consumerism, etc. Next step, the 70s – when things get really weird. :) Then the 80s when commerce finally works out how to make money online. The 90s – don’t know, kind of missed that decade but… well, you get my point.