Web Worker Daily

Steve Ballmer stirred up a bit of a tempest in Web 2.0 circles yesterday when he was quoted in the Times Online as saying

I think these things [social networks] are going to have some legs, and yet there’s a faddishness, a faddish nature about anything that basically appeals to younger people.

Various writers on the web have seized on this quote to suggest that Microsoft still doesn’t understand Web 2.0, or that pooh-poohing social networks is a negotiating tactic in their reported quest to buy a stake in Facebook, or to trumpet it as another example of arrogance coming from Redmond. (To my mind, a literal reading sees it more of an ageist statement than anything else). Meanwhile, over on TechCrunch Duncan Riley points out the elephant in the room: Facebook could indeed just be this year’s internet fad.

But what I want to know is: when did labeling something “a fad” become a dirty word? Think about some great fads of the past: hula hoops, lava lamps, pet rocks, coonskin caps, yo-yos. Or on the Internet: Hampsterdance, Mahir, Dancing Baby, Hot or Not. Wouldn’t you like to have that much business or that much traffic? Call me a fad all you want if my numbers look that good.

Look a little deeper, and I think you’ll see something else: particular things may be fads, but the categories that they fit into are long-lasting. Hula hoops, Mahir, and MySpace may come and go, but recreation, net humor, and social networking are eternal. And that is why dismissing “social networks” as a fad is wrongheaded. What’s distressing about the Ballmer quote is not that he undervalues the effort involved in creating Facebook or its stock value ($10-15 billion strikes me as absurd too), but that he apparently sees the entire notion of social networking as a fad.

Humans are, with the exception of a very few hermits and recluses, social animals. Historically, we have found ways to bring our desire for socializing into every medium that allows two-way communication, from meeting in person to writing letters to amateur radio to the internet. Social networks are just another example of this phenomenon, and one that works well for many, many people. If Facebook stumbles and crashes tomorrow, the human need to socialize won’t vanish, and web workers won’t abandon the internet. We’ll quickly route around the damage, and find each other again on other sites and services. In two weeks, the conversations will start all over again in other venues.

There’s the key point for web workers: we’re online, we’re flexible, and we’re increasingly networked – not through one particular site, but through a whole shifting set of sites. Anyone who doesn’t understand this is increasingly doomed to be left behind as we do business our way instead of theirs.