Wordiness

Yesterday I wrote about Augmented Reality and speculated on a mashup between that, virtual worlds, lifelogging and Web 2.0 applications. In the comments VeeJay referred to that term "Paraverse", and I kind of just said: "Oh, now we're just making words up!"

Now, apparently, I'm a "Noospherist" which is a fancy way of saying that I commune with the collective unconscious of the Metaverse. Well that's my take on it. I remember Prokofy and I bouncing the term around a few months ago in the comments of something or other, but I was still surprised to see his blog about it today. He sandwitched me between Destroy Television, an avatar that's remote-controlled through a web page, and Apotheus Silverman who co-founded Abbott's Aerodrome and works for SLX.

Hmm. So I'm on a list between a mindless aggregate of the collective consciousness and a major business player. Wait... what's this list for again?

Sitting at 54 people I think this list was Prok's way of saying "These are people nobody talks about who make things move", which is nice, but I don't think it means too much. It's a bit arbitrary. Still, there's something compelling about writing a list of names, slapping a label on them, and then leaning back and saying "Discuss".

Even if there is NO meaning... even if Prok intentionally picked random names and a label that few if any could possibly understand, people will react. They will assign meaning based on whatever those words happened to mean and whatever their personal opinions of the people in the list are, and rants will ensue pontificating without end. People will try to place it in the mythological pantheon of players like the FIC, the Meterati, and who knows what else. All Prok needs to do now is refer to the term once or twice more, casually, as if it's a given, and voila: the term has traction.

Say what you want about Prok but you have to admit, that's damn clever.