Shroggle's added value

The Oxytocin argument:
User created content is undoubtedly one of the most important developments of our age.
Societally, economically and institutionally it is reforming our culture, and will continue to do so to who knows what ends.

Shroggle will be a venue for user created content. But Shroggle will be more than that.

The problem and the opportunity of social networking and digital ucc 'sharing' has been identified most audibly in criticisms of face book and other social networking web sites... Digital communication is actually reducing real communication. Filling our hours with superficial contact - we are loosing our ability to connect. Of course 50 years of television contributed to that phenomenon somewhat..

So what?

I would suggest that this is neither desirable in the long term, nor sustainable. Humans have a strong instinct and biological need to affiliate. Its what makes us feel safe, perhaps its what makes us feel human.

We are fundamentally a social organism, and that the healthier we are the more we want sincere personal affiliation.

What is 'sincere personal affiliation'? Its partly about really knowing someone else, knowing more about who they are, what they think and feel, where they fit in your model of the world, and how they relate to you personally...

Feeling another person as yourself, feeling within yourself what another is feeling.

It is this process of mapping that creates feelings of empathy and affiliation.

I believe that seeing the product of someone's creativity is beautiful, but knowing that person - is personally meaningful, even inspirational.

How does shroggle fit in to this: Shroggle allows the creators of content to publish it themselves, in a 'venue' that makes room for more information about who they are, information about other aspects of them. One of the primary ways that we learn about a person is by seeing their unique diversity. A matrix of connections to the rest of their online identity / identities that allows us to understand them in the context of a multitude of affiliations, talents, contributions and networks. This information makes that person 'real', and it increases the significance and impact of their creative contributions.

A central hub that points to all of their individual contributions. A network of hubs, even a matrix of networks that form a community of inter related entities - be they people, organizations, communities or interest groups.

Today this is the technical reality of the Internet.. but it is not our experience of it.

That's the opportunity.