Circles are, mathematically speaking, sets, and I think set arithmetic would come in real handy: “Post this to the intersection of my Photogeeks circle and my Vancouver circle”. I can think of lots of other amusing permutations. The reason I bring this up is because I smile, envisioning a future in which math teachers use social-network constructs to explain Set Theory.
If nothing else, I’d like a tool that’d display intersections and identify subset relationships among my circles. Just for my amusement. How many intersections are null sets, how many have just one member; to be surprised by who the people are in intersections; how close the memberships of two circles are…
Well one had to see it. Because it’s there. And the reports of how it didn’t miss the Bandra Worli Sea Link by much, relatively speaking. From the spot on Juhu beach where the damn thing is, you can easily see the taller pair of towers of the Sea Link.
But it’s big. Driving down Juhu Tara from Santacruz, near the Ramada curve, I told myself to Keep a Watch out; you don’t want to Miss It. I thought it’d be a hundred feet off the beach or suchlike. Watch out my ass. It’s like the Worli TV tower while coming off the BWSL – in your damn face. It’s on the sand. For something this massive to come this close to the shore it’d have to be not just crazy, but Charlie-Sheen-stark-raving-nuts-berserk-crazy. This helicopter shot is straight out of a disaster movie – the damn vessel-from-hell is headed straight for the Juhu Centaur:
So I pay-and-parked in front of the Ramada and walked towards it. Few analogies, really. Dinosaur? Gulliver? Space ship? None come close. It’s ancient. Filthy. Tired. Rusting. The last vestiges of dignity seeping out of it. And yet disinterested in its fate, just as long as there’s one in store. So there’s a massive loneliness, sadness around it:
And yet it utterly dominates the horizon around it. Standing close to it gives you a sense of creeping agoraphobia, until you just have to look away. It’s arguably smaller than the Centaur and the Ramada in front of it but unmatched in sheer presence. No shacks, palm groves, seafront bungalows, miscellaneous other construction and crumbling walls around it. It stands alone. Off to its left there’s nothing until Madh, far into the distance. On its right, the Sea-link,the only comparable superstructure, is obscured by the hump of land at Juhu Koliwada.
So it stands, despicable, unwelcome, but unchallenged as emperor of its stretch of sea-land.
Pleasantly surprised it’s still around. Addictive. Youhavebeenwarned. Spent many a post-lunch hour at IBM 2004-05 playing GTG followed by fantastically productive afternoons.
I feel that we’re at the beginning of a cycle in business where we move away from this idea of “influentials”, and instead focus marketing activity on small connected groups of close friends. I think this is what marketers are starting to think about, and will be the prominent theme for this decade.
Correct. Have seen this brewing. New fashion. Expect flood of upstarts. Expect incumbents struggle pitifully to adapt.
… as Paul Adams says, we keep multiple circles of acquaintances in real life. But it doesn’t necessarily follow that people want to take the time to reflect that behavior online. After all, in the real world, managing your circles of friends is usually an implicit thing—you hang out with your school friends when you’re at school, you hang out with your New York friends when you’re in New York, you talk to your coworkers when you’re at work.
Which is essentially what I said yesterday. Only one circle in real-life at any time is worth having an online equivalent for, and that circle is likely to be some some past phase of your life.
Unless you make a spectacular online equivalent. Is that + ?
