Content is the person

In discussions about farmfoody.org, the idea came up that recipes represent people in a way similar to the way avatars represent people, only much richer because they contain search engine friendly content. The recipe becomes a way for people to explore farms by navigating to the profile the recipes belongs to, then exploring the connections between users (producers and consumers who are friends).

Content is the person. I think we will see more of this as social media continues to expand an evolve. This can be seen, again on Twitter, where the person is represented by the content. When you go to a person's Twitter page, you see mainly their content. The "profile" is in the background. This allows Twitter to prominently display information about the content stream, because they do not have to deal with ten different kinds of content under ten different categories. Tweet streams have following friends, followers and the number of updates counted. If there were ten types of content on the page, if each time personal information was updated, what would constitute an update? It is clear updates mean the number of posts. Following, followers, post stats. That's it. Clear and concise.

Twitter succeeds by not being all things. It is a tool. Putting the profile in the background the content on the page. We can speak of a "Twitter page" because we know what is on it, unlike a Facebook page, which has almost anything on it. People know what you mean when you say "go to my Twitter page."

Our thinking about the direction farmfoody's features should go in are being directed by these concerns.