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.
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.Keep th' faith,
Article DanPS The song that sprang to mind as I wrote this:
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