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I feel like I'm losing my mind having to justify that Yo is anything but Stupid Stupid. The technology is easy to copy, not defensible, and not novel. It does n

I feel like I'm losing my mind having to justify that Yo is anything but Stupid Stupid. The technology is easy to copy, not defensible, and not novel. It does not move the needle in terms of bringing us closer to a technological utopia. It is in my mind, a glorified Hello World app with some modern colors / UI treatment. There is no revenue model and no form of scalability (unless you consider adding a word after "yo" to be scale). This is a dud for all intents and purposes, and yet I can imagine being down voted to hell, all along the way being barraged with a point-by-point breakdown on how I'm wrong on all points with some pseudo-intellectual handwaving. This app is nothing more than popularity-through-absurdity, that it even glazed the eyes of millions is a testament to our culture's obsession with irony, which only further feeds the fuel to the fire. And yet I further this irony by commenting on it as making it something to talk about. It's a vicious cycle. /rant

jonnathanson 12y ago
Yo has become a ridiculous Rorschach Test in tech circles and in the media. Everyone's falling all over themselves to come up with new and mind-blowing things they see in Yo that the rest of us just don't get. It's almost an unspoken challenge: peer deeply into the void that is Yo, and think BIGGER than anyone else is thinking about it! Reveal its mysteries! Shed light on the immeasurable depths of its genius! Some of this is ironic, and some of it is earnest. Some of it is little more than intellectual masturbation. Some of it is a self-serving attempt to signal oneself as a cool kid, as someone who gets it. I'm prepared to give Yo a shitload of credit for its marketing and PR strategies. Kudos to Yo. Seriously. I'm also willing to acknowledge the potential upsides in a simple, expansible notification platform. The keyword there is "potential." Yo can be quite a lot of things, some of them very useful, some of them ingenious. It's not yet any of those things. But it very well could be. Tl;dr: I don't know whether Yo is Stupid Brilliant or Stupid Stupid, whether it's Crazy Like a Fox or just plain Crazy. But I do applaud the Yo team for having launched a viral sensation, which is no trivial accomplishment. If this is the beginning of a legitimate platform, it's a very interesting beginning. If this is some sort of Andy Kaufmanesque performance art piece, it's kind of brilliant. If this is a passing fad, it'll be remembered as the fad that snagged pretty much everyone; there will be a permanent record of a lot of pundits' foolishness, and that will have been worth it. There is something interesting at work here, intentional or accidental, brilliant or ridiculous. Only time will tell whom the joke was on.
xvolter 12y ago
I agree. It's stupid stupid, hands down.
dennisnedry 12y ago
You hit the nail on the head with your assessment of Yo as a "Hello World" app. There's literally nothing else to it. Yo is another example of the tech/startup industry drinking Kool-Aid. Nobody would even take this noob app seriously if it wasn't for the fact that it has already gotten funding. I guess the question is whether or not investors are really nothing more than poker players.
- ddp 12y ago
  I think you have your answer.
rrss1122 12y ago
I'll risk being downvoted with you, because I agree that Yo, and all the hype that has cropped up around it, is just stupid stupid.
dfxm12 12y ago
FWIW, I've found use for Yo when making recipes with IFTTT. It replaced email as a trigger. That doesn't make it "stupid genius", but for any given tool, someone will find a use for it.
kybernetikos 12y ago
I'm only recently coming to realize the huge purchasing power of the irony-demographic.

jonnathanson 12y ago

Yo has become a ridiculous Rorschach Test in tech circles and in the media. Everyone's falling all over themselves to come up with new and mind-blowing things they see in Yo that the rest of us just don't get. It's almost an unspoken challenge: peer deeply into the void that is Yo, and think BIGGER than anyone else is thinking about it! Reveal its mysteries! Shed light on the immeasurable depths of its genius! Some of this is ironic, and some of it is earnest. Some of it is little more than intellectual masturbation. Some of it is a self-serving attempt to signal oneself as a cool kid, as someone who gets it. I'm prepared to give Yo a shitload of credit for its marketing and PR strategies. Kudos to Yo. Seriously. I'm also willing to acknowledge the potential upsides in a simple, expansible notification platform. The keyword there is "potential." Yo can be quite a lot of things, some of them very useful, some of them ingenious. It's not yet any of those things. But it very well could be. Tl;dr: I don't know whether Yo is Stupid Brilliant or Stupid Stupid, whether it's Crazy Like a Fox or just plain Crazy. But I do applaud the Yo team for having launched a viral sensation, which is no trivial accomplishment. If this is the beginning of a legitimate platform, it's a very interesting beginning. If this is some sort of Andy Kaufmanesque performance art piece, it's kind of brilliant. If this is a passing fad, it'll be remembered as the fad that snagged pretty much everyone; there will be a permanent record of a lot of pundits' foolishness, and that will have been worth it. There is something interesting at work here, intentional or accidental, brilliant or ridiculous. Only time will tell whom the joke was on.

xvolter 12y ago

I agree. It's stupid stupid, hands down.

dennisnedry 12y ago

You hit the nail on the head with your assessment of Yo as a "Hello World" app. There's literally nothing else to it. Yo is another example of the tech/startup industry drinking Kool-Aid. Nobody would even take this noob app seriously if it wasn't for the fact that it has already gotten funding. I guess the question is whether or not investors are really nothing more than poker players.

ddp 12y ago
I think you have your answer.

rrss1122 12y ago

I'll risk being downvoted with you, because I agree that Yo, and all the hype that has cropped up around it, is just stupid stupid.

dfxm12 12y ago

FWIW, I've found use for Yo when making recipes with IFTTT. It replaced email as a trigger. That doesn't make it "stupid genius", but for any given tool, someone will find a use for it.

kybernetikos 12y ago

I'm only recently coming to realize the huge purchasing power of the irony-demographic.