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I feel that Yo's criticisms are frankly kind of... weird. > "It's stupid!" No, it's pretty fun :) > It's useless! You can't communicate with 0 characters! T

by pizza 12y ago

I feel that Yo's criticisms are frankly kind of... weird. > "It's stupid!" No, it's pretty fun :) > It's useless! You can't communicate with 0 characters! There are actually tremendous sources of information with Yos, if you know where to look. Timestamp and username alone are usually enough to convey some message ("Hey it's 8 oclock, log in to Steam dawg", "Hey, it's 2am, why not come over to my place?" etc.). Implicit information like number of Yos exchanged in the last 10 minutes, health of friendship, etc. also contribute. The key thing to keep in mind is that all Yos are ambiguous and depend on context: the detractors should stick to texts, if they don't want to decrypt messages. Either way, there will always be people saying that low entropy signals are useless, but, as they say, 1 if by land, 2 if by sea... > "Doesn't scale / tech is too basic / I could write it in day / society is crumbling / etc." C'mon.. The app is a concept piece. What's wrong with the app (barring whatever security issues there once were or that might resurface)? Yo accomplishes it's goal, end of story. These types of critiques all seem rooted in the idea that Yo fails to reach some critical threshold of complexity that would give it intellectual merit or some shit like that. Strawman: "A sham argument set up to be defeated."

krapp 12y ago
There's nothing wrong with the app per se. However, there is something clearly wrong with it being as popular and valued as high as it is. A concept piece should not be worth millions of dollars and be surrounded with as much hype as Yo appears to be. And while you're right about metacontextual information being a thing - that problem is not one that Yo actually solves. I don't see anyone saying yos are completely useless, but people have already been exchanging these kinds of messages for decades (they're known as emoticons and emoji.) In that regard the only thing Yo has going for it is it's UI. Which, granted, may be a draw - but it's still not worth the coverage it's getting. Also it's worth pointing out that "stupid" and "fun" can be overlapping sets. Case in point: Angry Birds. Clearly fun, also clearly kind of stupid.
- pizza 12y ago
  I understand what you mean. But one thing I'd like to mention is, if you think about it, there are already several concept pieces worth several billions of dollars: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films, and others, in terms of hundreds of millions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_music_artists http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_music_arti..., etc. I'd also like for readers unfamiliar with 4'33 to read up about it, and what was said about it at the time.
  - krapp 12y ago
    I don't know that those make a compelling argument for Yo, though. How many were worth that much money in their day, or would have become worth what they are without the cachet of the artist? While it pains me to say it, there is case to be made for Yo as a work of art, if art can be accidental (I guess all real memes are accidental art in a way, and Yo's popularity seems memetic to me.) And perhaps the ephemeral nature of the medium works against it, but I seriously doubt anyone is going to care about Yo fifty years from now.

by pizza 12y ago

krapp 12y ago

There's nothing wrong with the app per se. However, there is something clearly wrong with it being as popular and valued as high as it is. A concept piece should not be worth millions of dollars and be surrounded with as much hype as Yo appears to be. And while you're right about metacontextual information being a thing - that problem is not one that Yo actually solves. I don't see anyone saying yos are completely useless, but people have already been exchanging these kinds of messages for decades (they're known as emoticons and emoji.) In that regard the only thing Yo has going for it is it's UI. Which, granted, may be a draw - but it's still not worth the coverage it's getting. Also it's worth pointing out that "stupid" and "fun" can be overlapping sets. Case in point: Angry Birds. Clearly fun, also clearly kind of stupid.

pizza 12y ago
I understand what you mean. But one thing I'd like to mention is, if you think about it, there are already several concept pieces worth several billions of dollars: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films, and others, in terms of hundreds of millions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_music_artists http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_music_arti..., etc. I'd also like for readers unfamiliar with 4'33 to read up about it, and what was said about it at the time.
- krapp 12y ago
  I don't know that those make a compelling argument for Yo, though. How many were worth that much money in their day, or would have become worth what they are without the cachet of the artist? While it pains me to say it, there is case to be made for Yo as a work of art, if art can be accidental (I guess all real memes are accidental art in a way, and Yo's popularity seems memetic to me.) And perhaps the ephemeral nature of the medium works against it, but I seriously doubt anyone is going to care about Yo fifty years from now.