What the hell is a "memetracker"?

I’ve been watching the comments on Scoble’s post since I posted my early thoughts this afternoon. I had another thought that came to mind this evening as I read through the comments.

I think it’s important to think about the type of person who is using tools like Memeorandum and others. Scoble gushes about how much these sites help him find new things to read and introduce him to “new voices”. That’s all well and good, but the thing about Scoble that you have to remember is that his job is a tech evangelist. Bascially, from what I can tell, he gets paid to talk about technology. Much in the same way John Dvorak, Leo Laporte, Pirillo, Doc Searls, etc. do.

All these folks make a living writing about technology, talking about technology, going to conferences, giving presentations, etc. Naturally, they are interested in spending time finding all the news and ideas that they can find. Now those of us with actual “in the trenches” types of jobs, to borrow from Kevin Devin for the moment, generally don’t have time to sit and read through a bunch of junk in order to find new sources. We’ve found a limited number of sources we read on a regular basis, and we trust these folks to share ideas and news that is important to what we are doing. We are part of the conversation, but we are not consumed with the blogosphere’s conversations all day and all night. Maybe, if I talked about technology for a living, I would be, but as it stands now, I have to spend 8 hours a day helping people use the tools they currently have, fixing software quirks, diagnosing hardware problems, etc. Spending time checking the latest “memes” doesn’t help me there very often.

So the next time Scoble or someone else starts talking about some new “thing” and you just don’t see the appeal, remember that they are coming at this from a totally different perspective than the rest of us.

Sidenote: Notice I did not refer to our jobs as “real” work as opposed to what Scoble, et al do. I fully appreciate that getting up in front of people and talking about technology, or writing on a deadline is real work. It’s a different perspective and a different lifestyle, but it IS work!

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