Robert Scoble vs. Rob La Gesse: "Noise" Pollution

“Heh, Rob La Gesse just deleted his FriendFeed account along with all my comments (he hates that comments were happening here on FriendFeed)” (Link)

The above comment was posted last night by Robert Scoble after Rob La Gesse deleted removed his feeds from his FriendFeed account shortly after an extended conversation regarding one of Rob La Gesse's blog posts started taking place on FriendFeed.

Robert Scoble's FriendFeed comment was about all that needed to be said on the subject, as the conversation took off from there.

Instead, Robert Scoble took to hounding Rob La Gesse on Twitter about the deletion, first claiming La Gesse did so because he didn't like how heated the conversation got, then went on to change his story to claim Rob La Gesse did so because he didn't like where the conversation was taking place. I'm not going to argue the motives behind La Gesse's account feed deletion on FriendFeed.

What I will discuss is how last night Robert Scoble went from"noise" to noise pollution.

First, let's not lose sight of the fact that this whole conversation-turned-schoolyard-shouting-match started over some bad press for Robert Scoble. Rob La Gesse wrote a critical piece about Mr. Scoble that claimed Scoble had a tendency to promote the hell out a new technology, then leave it behind when the next new bit of technology arrived on the scene.

Robert Scoble was first on the scene to drop a comment on the blog entry, then soon many of Scoble's followers from FriendFeed began to trickle in (myself included). Shortly there after the conversation started to shift to FriendFeed, and that's when all hell broke loose.

Rob La Gesse deleted removed his feeds from his FriendFeed account and the entire conversation that had taken place regarding his recent blog post was lost.

Robert Scoble says: "What a nasty thing to do. He just deleted his account and took all MY content with it!" (Link)
But then Robert Scoble said: "Chris: actually the person who started the comment cluster does "own" the cluster. For instance, you are commenting on my cluster here. I can delete your comment. I could also delete the whole cluster including everyone's comments on it. I've already deleted one comment to remove spam. This is like you are commenting on my blog and I have the same rights there." (Link)
My thoughts: Wasn't La Gesse just exercising the very rights you say he has?

Robert Scoble says: "Mike: >>You obviously do mind, you're moaning that kr8tr "deleted" your friendfeed comments. Yeah, I do mind. I mind that he took his marbles and went home cause he didn't like what I was saying here on top of his Twitter messages."
But last night says: "I answer this post further in a place that I control: http://friendfeed.com/e/7ea9b75a-b30a-8cac-15c7-64e1da674b69" (Link)
My take: Robert Scoble took his marbles and went home because he could not control the conversation on someone else's blog.

Robert Scoble says: "Me? I follow wherever the conversation takes me." (Link)

So much for that.

Photo by Flickr user Don Fulano

What can FidoNet teach us about today's fragmented conversation dilemma?

Remember the good old BBS days? When you could find good conversation on FidoNet?

We talk about the noise and the fragmenting of the conversation online, but if you ask me, what we had back in the day wasn't so bad.

FidoNet was much easier to the average person to follow than USENET, and SysOps could pick and choose which message board topics to offer to their subscriber base to better streamline the conversation. It was about connecting the users and the conversations. Someone in Dallas, Texas posts about the election of Bill Clinton, and I could add my thoughts on a separate bulletin board system in Michigan. Then someone in California would look at what we both had to say and share their opinion with the both of us.

In the days before the Internet was widely accepted, this was one hell of a way to connect to people around the globe that had access to the FidoNet. And it worked.

FriendFeed, Twitter, Pownce, Digg, Google Reader Notes, Blog Comments, etc... the conversation is fragmented terribly these days. Maybe it's time we take a page from some "old school" technology.

What if someone developed some type of standard "protocol" for the conversation to flow upon. Blog comments, Twitter posts, Pownce, FriendFeed, Digg, StumbleUpon, etc... if it all flowed on some type of standard protocol that synchronized within an agreed upon and coordinated network, you could pull the full conversation into your Blog or Website much like the SysOps pulled the conversation into their Bulletin Board Systems from FidoNet back in the early 1990s.

Then you'd have a system where someone who comments on a story on Digg could have his comment replied to by someone viewing the original blog post, and then several people could throw their two cents in on Twitter, and the entire thread could be followed on FriendFeed.

Easier said than done by a long shot, but if we start thinking FidoNet, maybe... just maybe... it'd be a step in the right direction.

Photo by Flickr user edans