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((Insert here)) is the new ((Insert here))

By Dan O'Connor on May 29, 2007

This could be one of Mat’s column ideas: Bobbie Johnson asks whether “Facebook is the new Apple”. Yet it was only last November that Ben Bajarin was wondering “can Facebook become the new Myspace?” and merely last month that Tessa Wegert asked, a touch more conditionally, “could Facebook become the new Myspace?”. Conflictingly, however, also last month, some of the folks over at Digg.com were demanding to know: “is Facebook the new Twitter?”; a question admirable in its unwillingness to bow to traditional notions of linear chronology. But, for those still keeping up, Scott Barnes (a developer evangelist for Microsoft) has now verblessly asked, “Twitter the new blog?”, a question which can surely only be answered by asserting that “Pink is the new Blog”. But then, I suppose it has been a few years since anyone worried, not just verblessly, but colonically, “Blogging: the new Journalism?” – a question Tom Wolfe really thought he’d answered in 1973. Naturally, it was a journalist (at USA Today) who claimed that “Gay cowboys are the new Penguins” – a sentence that could surely never have been typed, even by an infinite number of monkeys. Of course, this all started in 1961 with Diana Vreeland’s declaration that “pink is the new black”, a stylish statement that forty-six years later had mutated into “Beta is the new black” – something we should probably be thankful that Ms Vreeland did not live to hear.

All of which makes me wish I had the patience to draw a map as cool as this one, from thedigram.com

So what’s the new new in your life?

Posted in , , , | 6 Responses

Dan O'Connor

Dan is responsible for translating social media research into the analytic and conceptual frameworks which underpin the team’s product and service development. He is particularly interested in how social media has changed the ways in which people exchange information within networks, and the impact that these changes have had on traditionally top-down information systems, such as those prevalent within the health, education and NGO sectors, where he leads RMM’s activities.

Dan’s focus upon health and education stems from his background in academia: He has a PhD in History and, as well as being Head of Research at RMM, he is a member of faculty at the Berman Institute of Bioethics at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, USA. He has published and lectured widely on the ethics of social media use within healthcare systems, and is involved in the application of social media in medical education at Johns Hopkins hospital.

Dan likes cooking, martinis, and irony. Frequently at the same time.

6 responses to “((Insert here)) is the new ((Insert here))”

  1. Mat Morrison
    Mat Morrison
    May 29, 2007 at 16:09 | | Reply

    I’ve diagrammed your article as follows:

    The New...

    (you have to love GraphViz. Well, I do, anyway.)

  2. Dan O'Connor
    Dan O'Connor
    May 29, 2007 at 17:33 | | Reply

    Well, I’ve since found out that “transsexual sportswriters are the new gay cowboys”, so you’re gonna need to update…

  3. Bobbie Johnson
    Bobbie Johnson
    May 29, 2007 at 23:05 | | Reply

    Heh, I did write a paragraph about why it was stupid to say “X is the new Y” in my post, but excised it because I’d already rambled plenty by the time I got to the end.

    Also: there’s a lot of “blogging about X is killing professional writing about X” at the moment too (movies, books, design etc).

  4. Mat Morrison
    Mat Morrison
    May 30, 2007 at 15:49 | | Reply

    new diagram

    Done


    digraph {
    apple -> facebook;
    myspace -> facebook;
    myspace -> facebook;
    myspace -> facebook;
    twitter -> facebook;
    blog -> twitter;
    blog -> pink;
    journalism -> blog;
    penguins -> gay_cowboys;
    black -> pink;
    black -> beta;
    gay_cowboys -> transsexual_sportswriters
    }

  5. Mat Morrison
    Mat Morrison
    May 30, 2007 at 15:51 | | Reply

    Bobbie,

    See also the “Is Blogging Killing Planning” meme.

  6. Dan O'Connor
    Dan O'Connor
    May 30, 2007 at 15:57 | | Reply

    I would be considerably more worred, Mat, were Blogging Planning Killing…

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