Or so says Danny Boy who has put Wisdump on his list of Best Interaction Design Blogs for 2006. First off, thanks Danny, I appreciate it and have to wonder if you were really reading my site or were just so impressed by the name that you felt an obligation to include me on your list. Anyways, 2007 is going to be much better because I have no choice but to make it better. However, this entry isn’t about you Danny, I have given you enough attention already, this entry is about what you said about my site.
Wisdump tells it like it is, deflating the web-hype machine.
That’s cool and all, but how come we don’t see more people deflating the machine that they are creating? My theory is that because deep down we all want to be part of that next big thing. We hype up the abilities of the social web, spit on MySpace and then wish to create the next one. I hate on a lot of things and will readily admit to that. I used to be pretty tough on 37signals for a couple of reasons. One being that I had so much respect for them and basically grew up with them it was hard to see a small change and secondly I wanted their success (not their products and services mind you) and that usually leads to a bit of jealousy.
You ever read these stories of companies being bought out and think “man those punks just made $20 million for something I could create in 2 weeks”? Yeah, you probably thought that at one time or another and maybe you wrote about it, but when writing about it there was a good chance you wrote an entry filled with jealousy or one filled with nothing but praise. There just never seems to be a median.
Maybe we all feel the need to hype everything because we have to scream louder than the next person. However, what you create probably won’t change the world or make you famous. It might get you on TechCrunch for your 15 seconds (yeah, 15 seconds because that’s how long it takes to read a headline in your newsreader) of fame so why bother hyping anything up at all?
I’ll tell you why. Because you believe in it. And sometimes that’s all that matters.
Originally posted on December 12, 2006 @ 8:38 am