Jumping Into The Fray Again At gapingvoid: "the market for something to complain about is infinite"

Maybe the action is picking up again over at gapingvoid as reader revolt spawns conversation about "what will be the next big thing?" Hugh has been remarkably successful with his English Cut venture but increasingly, his recent press release format has alienated readers who look to him for visionary savvy and cult cartoon humor. Hey, even Hugh admits today that he's a little bored by the recent bespoke suit frenzy. Not to worry, though: now that the question has reared it's ugly head the comment section has gotten fairly lively. I'm fairly pleased with my own little contribution, so I figure what the heck, I may as well reproduce it below. For the full context, it's worth clicking over to hugh's site to check out the fray. Actually, reader complaints aside, it's worth checking out gapingvoid anyway if you haven't already done so!

Asking what's next *is* basically what imagination is *for*. There is always a "next," regardless of whether we're comfortable or postioned for it. Thinking about what the next thing will be is generally considered to be more creative than happily tucking into the monument of the moment and considering history to be at a standstill. at least, that's my opinion...

That said, there are pretty much always precedents. Conversations and word of mouth existed long before Cluetrain. The first caveman who said, "hey, *these* berries don't make my tummy hurt like those bad berries over there," was engaging in word of mouth. All he needed was rudimentary language... heck, hand gestures would have done it. All that's really new about Cluetrain is the application of long-known, time-tested evangelism to readily accessible global communications networks. And maybe the idea that truth, honesty, passion and authenticity work better than BS when it's so easy to fact-check... In any small village, this has been true for centuries.

Cluetrain and Hughtrain have not yet outlived their novelty, nor really hit the mainstream so deeply as to dull the edge past usefulness. But the day is in sight when we may find "conversations" to be as ubiquitous and annoying as commercial radio.

So what's next? I expect it will be a new flavor, on a new scale, of something we were pretty much aware of already. My theory? Bespoke everything. The tech pretty much exists to have anything and everything custom fabricated at a price nearly in line with mass-manufactured products. Once we move beyond micro-brands to designing, producing and consuming everything on a personal level, I suppose the only brands worth talking about will be which fab shops have the best pricing, turnaround, tech support and customer service.

Not everyone has the time or inclination to design their own socks and toasters etc, so there'll still be room for exceptional designs from people like Philippe Starke, or whoever. On the other hand, when 200,000 *have* designed their own toaster, I wouldn't be surprised to see open source and file sharing of product design specs flood the bulk of the market. Whether these will be free or just really cheap is up for grabs. Probably both.

Now that I've laid all that out, I suppose I should be getting over to Amazon and looking for some Chinese language tapes, eh?