The troll rules have changed. Or have they?
There’s a lot of talk about trolling at the moment but just because someone shouts about wanting to kill you, it doesn’t mean their actual goal is a murder. It’s attention — and trying to quiet everyone in the world who’s after attention is going to take more than a new button in a social media tool.
From my article about this on Medium:
The global mainstream community is now being confronted with something more like the old dynamic of trolling. Even though most of it won’t be familiar with the old ways of dealing with these things, I think it’ll inevitably have to return to the time-honoured solution to disruptive human influence.
July 31st, 2013
The Re-Tale of Retail: HMV, community and the future
With the news of HMV’s demise today, following close on the heels of Jessops, Game and other similar massive retail chains, I’m seeing a couple of interesting things converging.
When I was little, I remember an independent CD shop and videogame shop on my high st. But the prices were so expensive that there was almost no chance I’d buy anything there. I went for a wander because they had interesting music playing or good conversations taking place. Atmosphere, I guess.
But with price as the ultimate decider (perhaps ironically in a time of such economic prosperity), the chains took over and were inevitably superseded on that front by the online stores. Amazon Prime with 1-Click or Steam being just about the ultimate incarnation of the most efficient transaction itself.
So when even the biggest high street stores can’t compete on price, speed or reliability, what’s left?
January 15th, 2013