Paul Jacobson

“I’m sick of sharing”

I came across a frustrated Jeremy Zawodny who was lamenting the many many uses of the word "share" in this Web 2.0 world:

More precisely, I’m sick of being told to "share" every damned piece of "content" I run across on the Web.
It seems to me that "share" has been abused into such a generic term, that I have no idea what’s going to happen when I click on of those "share" links. The things I’ve seen to date are:

  • pop-up that pisses me off
  • a login page appears (WTF?!)
  • new page loads (in a tab), resizes firefox, and pisses me off (*cough* YouTube *cough*)
  • an in-line form appears
  • my email client pops up
  • I’m taken to a page that with a To:, Subject:, and Body fields along with instructions for posting on my blog
  • I’m taken to a page that explains how to embed a Flash widget on MySpace

I’m sure there are other "sharing" behaviors I’ve yet to encounter. Some probably involve various IM clients. And SMS. And carrier pigeons.

I had to laugh when I read this post. It seems that "share" has become the buzz word for the Web 2.0 world. Every application is an opportunity to share some form of content, whether it be photos, videos or your wardrobe choices (there is actually a site that can do this, I just don’t recall the name). Initially this concept of sharing was a great paradigm shift for the evolving web space but it has come to lose its meaning and freshness through over-use. So yes, much of Web 2.0 is about sharing but let’s give the word a break for a little while?

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4 responses to ““I’m sick of sharing””

  1. Social bookmarking at chilibea avatar
    Social bookmarking at chilibea

    […] As you can see, the bookmarks have titles, tags and even give you an indication how popular that web page is.  This is where the social component of a service like del.icio.us comes in.  A big aspect of these services is the ability to (with apologies to Jeremy Zawodny) share your bookmarks with others and even form networks around those bookmarks.  In fact, bookmarks have evolved quite a bit since the 1990s and Niall Kennedy has a great review of the evolution of bookmarks and their various manifestations and uses. […]

    Reply
  2. Social bookmarking at chilibean

    […] As you can see, the bookmarks have titles, tags and even give you an indication how popular that web page is.  This is where the social component of a service like del.icio.us comes in.  A big aspect of these services is the ability to (with apologies to Jeremy Zawodny) share your bookmarks with others and even form networks around those bookmarks.  In fact, bookmarks have evolved quite a bit since the 1990s and Niall Kennedy has a great review of the evolution of bookmarks and their various manifestations and uses. […]

    Reply
  3. Changing cultures or getting b avatar
    Changing cultures or getting b

    […] I wonder if this mentality hasn’t penetrated our culture to the point where we have come to believe that our survival depends on holding those things of value close?  So we now find ourselves in the midst of this social media revolution where we share everything to the point where the very word "share" becomes a four letter word.  You can’t throw a stone, metaphorically, on the Web without hitting an example of where a culture of sharing doesn’t pay off pretty big.  Sure we still struggle with making a few bucks from sharing our content because the model doesn’t fit nicely with how we believe we should profit from our content (a relic from the old culture of not sharing) but the revenue models are there. […]

    Reply
  4. Changing cultures or getting back to basics at chilibean

    […] I wonder if this mentality hasn’t penetrated our culture to the point where we have come to believe that our survival depends on holding those things of value close?  So we now find ourselves in the midst of this social media revolution where we share everything to the point where the very word "share" becomes a four letter word.  You can’t throw a stone, metaphorically, on the Web without hitting an example of where a culture of sharing doesn’t pay off pretty big.  Sure we still struggle with making a few bucks from sharing our content because the model doesn’t fit nicely with how we believe we should profit from our content (a relic from the old culture of not sharing) but the revenue models are there. […]

    Reply

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