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August 18, 2009

A Momentile Lapse of Reason

Momentile is a new site / app / social networking photo image platform - just launched in alpha; I was fortunate to get an invite to the early days of Momentile's iteration and final polishes towards beauty. All this and an iPhone app to boot. Su-weet.

Momentile has similarities to MoBlog in that it is a perfect in its simplicity: take a photo and upload it. Boom - you're done. The idea is to build a visual mosaic of your life, a photo a day, another version of the emerging online phenomenon of the 'narrative of habit' seen in evidence across sites such as Daytum and 43 Things, and likely more; the idea that a ritual act creates expression and implies a tale to be referenced or inferred.

And, you know? I quite like something about this site's attitude - casual, cheerful, knowing, ironic... Your sign in button is labelled 'Kenny Login'; the site tells us that it thinks 'flickr's poo don't stink' so if you're looking for more bells and whistles for your images than this platform provides - go there instead, no hard ones, baby.

But it's that very irreverence and fast-loose play that gets them into the trouble for me.

Momentile's a social platform (natch), working on a minimal text - maximum image basis. You can share these images you take and you can enjoy the images of others like (or unlike) you through the platform's offering, via SMS or iPhone app, but here's the rub: the social thing has been horrendously mis-packaged and mis-presented for users.

The problem lies with the terminology of the product. The words - all important in this neck of the social woods - have, in my opinion, been ill-chosen.

So, you can follow people on Momentile, right? They can follow you. But you know how Twitter got there first with the whole following thing, well... Well, Momentile have decided to be different: you don't follow people - you STALK them.

Yes.

That's right.You stalk them.

And they can all stalk you.

So I suppose that's ok. The stalker is also a stalkee, so there's a real levelling here, no power-relationships to make the stalking thing seem weird or off...

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!!

That is not ok. I don't want to be a stalker. I don't want to be stalked. Let's be clear - I've never been stalked; I've never stalked anyone. It's just not for me on either side of that fence. But here's the thing - I don't sit on that fence either. I don't have ambilvalent, feelings about stalking as a prospect. It's not a 'meh' issue for me. It's bad. Stalking is bad. I'm sorry, but the word has pejorative meaning for me, and I think for many others. And I don't think it's one that can be claimed back by the good guys.

I imagine the meeting where 'stalking' was decided as their alternative to following... "OK guys, we know we want people to be social and basically follow each other, right? But we can't have following. Twitter has following. We're different. We promised the VCs we were different, so... we can't have followers. So brainstorm time: other things that people do like follow..."

"Chase." "Tail" "Creep" "Show interest" "Watch" "Hunt" "Stalk" "Prey upon" "Groom"...

"Wait, Scott Back up there. You had it!"

"Groom?"

"No, 'stalk'! People stalk each other right? If you're on Momentile and you follow someone you 'stalk' them. Awesome."

<A room erupts into applause>

Did no one stand up and say - "Sweet jesus christ, people! This is the worst idea I've ever heard! No one - NO ONE - is going to want to talk about their stalkers, how many people they're stalking, how they started stalking Stephen Fry and he stalked them back...!"

Who was in that room? Besides the imaginary Scott... I find it hard to imagine the group that found consensus on this one.

But found it they apparently did.

So, I agonised about this post. Having written it full of cheerful invective I suddenly thought - ok, I've been invited to help test the alpha site - it's a work in progress, do I really have a right to criticise this site? But, on consideration, - I've told you nothing you couldn't have found out via their iPhone App and pages. I'm not criticising the central concept or the functionality - indeed I like both of those. It's just the stalking thing. 

I've already written to Momentile about this - and forewarned that I've written the blog - and had a reply that takes my comments on board; they say that a lot of people basically like the fun / funny aspect of the stalking. So am I way off base here? Have I totally lost my sense of humour and fun? Would you happily sign up to start stalking friends and other strangers?


Keep th' faith,
Article Dan

PS The song that sprang to mind as I wrote this:

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