Note: you can get this t-shirt at North Beach’s Lola on Grant

I went on vacation for a month. When I got back, my chat-buddy @directeur had created a new web2.0 site, SocialWhoIs. We’ve been talking for a while about this industry, and approaches to creativity in technology, so I thought I’d interview him about this latest work.

Me: so I was talking with a friend yest. about you about socialwhois and noiseriver [ Directeur started another tool/site add-on to Friendfeed, NoiseRiver ] . So he was at a crossroads career-wise and decided to just pick out some projects he wanted to do reminds me of the just “create” impulse.

Directeur: I love it and I love it even more to see people who share this.

Me: Regarding Tweetdeck and how lame the Adobe Flash webkit is…

Directeur: … it’s imho a stupid concept to start with because there’s already architectures and framework to code on the 3 major platforms. I, for one, have built a personal framework for this kind o’ stuff

Me: Of course you have :) GEEK. So .. how did you decide how to design socialwhois?

Directeur: Well, a month before I started the “free hour” project, you know… [Directeur offered a mentoring/charity site to let people donate an hour of their specialty to other people in the community in need…] and this project needed a “tool” to help people find people who can help ’em, and this really came in very well. Well, with my stubborn opinions about “personal relevancy” and APML, and a “social web” based on THE use.

Me: I’m struggling with the UI design, though… haha.

Directeur: Oh the design? I actually spent less than 2 hours on it did it very quickly, I needed a container for the program that’s it. You like it that much, really? Ha ha.

Me: OK getting back to it, when you say “social web” based on the use … can you expand on that? I know we’ve talked about it.

Directeur: Well, the current social media algorithms on almost all social networks are built on the same parameter: POPULARITY. It’s always a kind of contests to gain rank, karma, followers, popularity! And I think that people are more interested in things they like than in people who are popular so, yeah that’s it — we share “interests” and that’s generally what makes “friendship” more “real”, and more interesting and fun.

Me: It’s that ego-building thing. I mean, I just clicked on “who faved me.”
It’s addictive, but not substantial. I think one of the stickiest parts of socialwhois – identifying people –
someone adds you on twitter, you can look them up on socialwhois.

Directeur: Yes, the so called “Voodoo” :).

Me: I love telling people they’re on here, but it’s not official.

Directeur: Which is actually not that “magic”, since everything’s already ready. It’s a mash-up of information. Yes, that’s why it says “guessed”.

Me: Were you surprised at the attention, at first?

Directeur: Yes, because I didn’t spend a lot of time on it! Like you,, and I do have tons of stuff to do during the day!

Me: Any last little opinions on where things are going with web2.0 sites… creating things from nothing… to inspire people to start something…

Directeur: Well yes, I do believe that we can make stuff happen. I mean I, for one, always debated about personal relevancy and attention profiles on friendfeed for e.g. But the best way to convince is to create little thingies, proofs of concepts, and extend it out, afterwards. I mean creation should start from *almost* nothing but a simple idea. Sounds very pompous, but I really believe in making things happen simply.

Other posts on Ideas to Creation:
Ideas to Creation: Landscaping
Jeanskirt
Beach cover
Time to Create