A fantastic ETech talk I wish I'd caught...

Raph has liveblogged Danah Boyd's Etech talk entited "Incantations for Muggles". Its awesome. Wish I'd been there for it, but Raph's thorough notetaking are a nice substitute. Really interesting stuff on changing social norms due to impact of technology, and on the use of technology by different people at different stages in life (and the costs of trying to make one size fit all).

Notable quotes:

"Expansion has costs. One of the costs is that you get people angry with you. The common response is lock-in: you have to stay even if you don’t want to, which goes against what people really value. Unhappy users do not make products stick, cf Friendster."

" Twitter is the most fascinating example of complete cognitive overload. Is it really building meaningful social realitions? Do we really gain anything? I know way too many details about Angelina Jolie. She won’t be there for me when I have a crisis. Will Twitter friends be there for you?"

One of the closing comments of the talk is particularly relevant in the context of my earlier post about Kathy Sierra.

"What does it mean to pay attention to the spells cast in both directions? The accidental spells? The Star Wars kid? The student who gets kicked out of college because of their Facebook? We think it’s all positive. Are we always happy with that? Do we even think about it, or do we forget that people’s lives are at stake."