I’m an edge case too
Elizabeth Lane Lawley thinks Robert Scoble is an edge case because he follows 840 blogs in a web feeds reader.
Someone who reads 840 blogs is an edge case. But so is someone who reads dozens of daily newspapers, or runs 10 miles every morning. Their choices may influence our behavior–those edge cases are great at recommending things to others – but most people will be far more moderate in their behavior.”
Interesting discussion. What makes people early adaptors? What does it take to become an edge case? In my opinion none of the examples Elizabeth mentions qualify to be an edge case. Not average, but certainly not an edge case.
I’m of the opinion that we should be more aware of people doing different things, because they are always the ones moving things forward. And calling someone “an edge case” stamps people with something that sounds bad, which it really shouldn’t be.
And I disagree with “very few people will ever have the time or the inclination to read that many sources”. I think lots of business leaders will have to start using tools to track their industries and their fields of interest in the years to come. It’s a bit strange to see how little knowledge many people in high positions in huge companies have about finding information, following information, and responding to it. And web feeds are perfect for this.
With the tools available today, it’s a bit of work to follow 840 feeds, but not especially difficult. It’s like e-mail, except that the headlines in your feed reader are articles and posts, not e-mails. As software develops, more people will follow information from lots of sources, and following a couple of hundred feeds will not be unusual. It will follow the same pattern as e-mail did: It’s not many years ago I was the only one in my family and at work who had an e-mail adress. Now: Impossible to imagine living without e-mail for most people. Same with mobile phones: Even 80 year old people here in Norway sends SMS messages to grand children.
Few years from now lots of people will be reading lots of their web content from feed readers. Why would you want to check every site that interest you to see if there’s something new?
BTW, I have over 500 feeds in my reader as of today, so I guess I’m an edge case too. Related to this is the fact that over 200 now subscribe to the feed of brilliantdays.com. Wow! And thanks for reading my posts!
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