I edit therefore I am

Just finish a great piece on attention on the NY MAG. You can read it here.

Just a quick extract :

Back in 1971, when the web was still twenty years off and the smallest computers were the size of delivery vans, before the founders of Google had even managed to get themselves born, the polymath economist Herbert A. Simon wrote maybe the most concise possible description of our modern struggle: “What information consumes is rather obvious: It consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.” As beneficiaries of the greatest information boom in the history of the world, we are suffering, by Simon’s logic, a correspondingly serious poverty of attention.

written by leafar \\ tags: attention, attention economy, information overload, scarce, Twitter

So here we are, back to blogging.

I took a blogging break and used the time to edit stuff around. One of them was/is to edit the real world, and for that I’ve used couchsurfing.

I’ve registered on couchsurfing the 8 august of last year, just after coming back from barcelona where I really enjoyed the “The Spanish Apartment” spirit maybe because it was an even better breath of fresh air after 5 months at the office.

First, Ive spent some time in the community, discovering the behaviours, the groups (opted for Lomo & photography and for practical purpose paris). Discovering the signs for trust and the way contribution was possible.

Then as soon as my new flat was available, I started hosting… and actually meeting people. From abroad and from paris, even people close to me (hi, Emmanuel). On average the ratio of very nice encounters is a lot better than with my local life and the least interesting experience was nevertheless a fairly nice evening (speaking about california).

We are now 500 000 members. France is the second country with 44,159 members but first in share of national population. Here are the stats of the day.

• CouchSurfers 517,516
• Successful Surfings (approx) 406,659
• Friendships Created (approx) 514,633
• Positive Experiences (approx) 808,689

TV helped a lot and like always it has an impact on behaviours. That’s part of the growth process. Digg dealed with it, some other start-up are currently crossing the chasme…. Paul Lamere describes it as the biggest challenge of last.fm.

I am now also a surfer … and i am confident for couchsurfing. but we’ll see.

Here are my first real edits. Pictures taken in cities where I’ve couchsurfed, video mixing done by animoto.

written by admin