{"id":1706,"date":"2010-05-24T20:04:12","date_gmt":"2010-05-25T00:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tibetantailor.com\/?p=1706"},"modified":"2010-05-26T08:30:39","modified_gmt":"2010-05-26T12:30:39","slug":"like-is-old-interesting-is-the-new-like","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tibetantailor.com\/?p=1706","title":{"rendered":"“Interesting” is the new like"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s about what I will like next.<\/strong>
\nIt seems the latest UI pattern is to allow people to \u201clike\u201d something online. When something becomes the fashion I start wondering what’s next. \u201cInteresting\u201d is the next \u201clike.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLike\u201d is a \u201clie\u201d in sheep\u2019s clothing<\/strong>
\nMy reasons are beyond Robert Schoble\u2019s observations that \u201clike\u201d is more of \u201clie.\u201d Schoble writes about why he doesn’t truthfully “like” the things online that he really “likes,” that he would \u201crather be seen as someone who eats salad at Pasta Moon than someone who eats a Big Mac at McDonalds.\u201d Over 50 years ago Mason Haire found the same thing with housewifes reluctant to admit they “liked” instant coffee. If he asked them why they didn\u2019t say they bought it, they said \u2018I don\u2019t like the flavor.\u201d But he discovered that people\u2019s real reason for not admitting they purchased instant coffee was more truthfully \u201cPeople will think I am lazy and not a good wife.\u201d Here is the crux of the \u201clie\u201d in \u201clike.\u201d Though this is insightful, I want to go beyond Schoble and Haire. We are in the midst of a deep cultural trend in our society that is driven by curiosity, toward future “likes”, and that is best summed up as things that are \u201cinteresting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nobody has hobbies anymore<\/strong>
\nPeople no longer talk about hobbies or do we hear people say \u201cYou\u2019ve got to get yourself a hobby.\u201d The 2 most popular hobbies \u2013 #1 is reading, #2 is watching TV really don\u2019t give insight into people. But if you know what they are INTERESTED in reading, well that is a different story. A story with tension and drama.<\/p>\n

Interesting isn\u2019t a metadata attribute, It\u2019s an alley-oop<\/strong>
\nSomething by itself isn\u2019t interesting. It can\u2019t be measured like a length, width, or color. Interestingness is more than the number of people that \u201clike\u201d something. I like water and I like food. I am interested in cheap Mexican food that is good and doesn\u2019t upset my stomach. More than knowing what my friend likes, if I know what he is interested in, we have something to talk about and to share. Relationships based on affinity, such as liking dogs, are ok, but don\u2019t give much entry point in which I can share something with the other person. If I know that someone is interested in something it tells me that they are curious about it, that they want to know more. That gives me an entry point, that gives me something to possibly share with them. Like doesn\u2019t open the door, it isn\u2019t an \u201calley-oop\u201d for me to slam dunk a conversation starter with someone. Interesting is the game winning slam dunk.<\/p>\n

Interesting is all about the juxtaposition<\/strong>
\nThings have a tendency to become interesting when you put them next to something else. Michael Leis wrote about juxtaposition and how just putting things next to each other can build interest. He argues that the positioning is that which create curiosity, it is the positioning that we want to make sense out of. We are sense-making animals. It isn\u2019t just about how many people like something. A better way to take \u201clike\u201d to the level of interesting is to bring in more juxtapositions. Show a person and the different things they like. Or put the things in order of what they liked. But the truth of the matter is that we gotta take like up a notch, take it to 11, take it to interesting.<\/p>\n

References<\/strong><\/p>\n

The \u201clike, er, lie\u201d economy<\/a><\/p>\n

Mason Haire, \u201cProjective Techniques in Marketing Research,\u201d Journal of Marketing, Vol 14 (April, 1950), pp 649-656<\/p>\n

Juxtaposition by Michael Leis which is in his presentation Designing Narrative: Contrast, Timing, and Context<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s about what I will like next. It seems the latest UI pattern is to allow people to \u201clike\u201d something online. When something becomes the fashion I start wondering what’s next. \u201cInteresting\u201d is the next \u201clike.\u201d \u201cLike\u201d is a \u201clie\u201d in sheep\u2019s clothing My reasons are beyond Robert Schoble\u2019s observations that \u201clike\u201d is more of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tibetantailor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tibetantailor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tibetantailor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tibetantailor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tibetantailor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1706"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"http:\/\/tibetantailor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1712,"href":"http:\/\/tibetantailor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1706\/revisions\/1712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tibetantailor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tibetantailor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tibetantailor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}