Back in the days of Internet Bubble 1.0 (right around the turn of the popular millennium), I used to pause every once in a while to look around at the swirling maelstrom of Internet-enabled technologies that we (and that’s a very collective “we”) were unleashing on the world.


Sure, maybe a lot of it didn’t make any business sense (we all found that out a few years later), and I didn’t even pretend to understand the actual technology that powered it, but I was pretty confident that I “got” what it was all about. Though even now, I’m not exactly sure what that was (or is), though we had plenty of buzzwords that we used to try to lay out the boundaries of the space: many-to-many, disintermediation, on-demand, always on.


There were plenty of people who didn’t get the Internet, though; they were marked (often proudly, perversely) by the flashing “12:00″ on their VCRs, and we often called them “Mom & Dad” — it conveniently marked the generational divide between folks who may have, perhaps, used computers as adults, versus people who grew up with them during the boom years of personal computing, when it moved from the realm of hobbyists to the mainstream.


During those introspective pauses, I used to wonder: Even as we made fun of those folks who didn’t get it (in retrospect, largely because the technology hadn’t matured enough to make things easy for people to do things without a lot of tinkering), what technologies would come along to shove me into that generation gap — what technologies would I just not be able to get, that would mark me with the flashing 12:00?


I figured it would be some sort of thought-controlled interface — maybe direct-brain controls and sensory inputs right out of sci-fi (just as a global network of interconnected computers had been sci-fi). But the reality has been much more prosaic, as there are plenty of things that I don’t get in the Web 2.0-ish world.


For example, take Friendfeed: In theory, I know what it is — a status aggregator and publisher, that along the way has morphed into a conversation tool in its own right. In practice, I never got it and never used it.


In a broader sense, all this federated, distributed stuff makes me a little uncomfortable. Sure, I know that we control our publishing, which means that (in theory) our data and digital selves are portable and not tied to any one provider anymore, which means that my Foursquare can update my Twitter which goes to my Facebook (and I’m sure the Friendfeed is in there somewhere), but in my heart of hearts, I still think in terms of having a home base somewhere that I can control.


Another thing I don’t get is lifecasting. I understand the hows, I just don’t get the whys — at least, not in any way that matters.


Related is a lot of stuff that goes to mobile technologies, especially the desire to be continually, socially, geolocated. It still creeps me out.


The more I think about this, the more I see that these generational technological differences are actually just attitudinal differences. I’m planning on posting a followup entry (or two), but in the meantime, if there are things that you just don’t get, please leave a comment below.




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