Latitude

I fear that most contemporary people are answering questions not because they’re flattered by the attention; they’re answering questions because they feel as though they deserve to be asked. About everything. Their opinions are special, so they are entitled to a public forum. Their voice is supposed to be heard, lest their life become empty. This, in one paragraph, explains the rise of New Media.

Chuck Klosterman, Eating the Dinosaur

On Chuck’s side, we have the narcissistic-exhibitionist “Growing Up On Facebook” perspective with regard to information-sharing. (Perhaps, with an extra tinge of the self-important. He delineates the phenomenon of liking to be heard from the feeling that one ought to be heard.)

More optimistically, we also have the channeling of this “personal drive to inform” in useful ways, as embodied in targeted knowledge-sharing platforms like Aardvark. It’s possible that answering questions only for those who want to know is enough to satisfy the “contemporary people’s” call to answer. (It may also be the key to new engagement.)

Aardvark appeals to the “know-it-all”–or, rather, the “know-a-lot-about-a-little,” in all of us; the engagement element is easy.

Latitude, “Aardvark: People as Information [Real-Time]“

Perhaps digital identity’s “faux friendship age” of personal profile grooming and (accusably) vapid status updates has grown up to surpass general, unsolicited loudmouthedness—to fulfill a truly information-driven destiny. (Or is getting there, at least.)

“… and we’ll both fade back into the ether, until we form transient connections with others in the name of good-will information exchange.”

Latitude, “Aardvark: People as Information [Real-Time]“

Thoughts on this? Other platforms that engage our knowledge “outspokenness” in useful or information-centric ways?