The platform is the conversation

“Prior to the Internet, the last technology that had any real effect on the way people sat down and talked together was the table,” observed Clay Shirky in a 2003 speech. One thing you can say about a table, as a social-networking technology, is that it doesn’t have an agenda. It is agnostic aboutthe conversation that goes on around it. The table is a mute and neutral host; all the action occurs at itsedges, where the people are. And so, when Shirky discussed the essence of online communicati...