Is social media a wild-and-wooly (yet ultimately self-governing) marketplace of ideas? Or, can there ever be "too much" discussion of anything...including social media itself?

A proliferation of recent articles, blog posts and other communications seem to advance the idea that "There's too much talk about ______ ," wherein ______ is the particular technology, brand, individual or pop culture obsession du jour the individual opining personally finds most annoying.

While there's no doubt that such statements frequently reflect a well-founded concern about reflexive groupthink, they're also inherently problematical. Why? Because the quality and quantity of the content people create may speak volumes about them as individuals and perhaps society, but has nothing to do with social media itself. Is this blindingly obvious, or is there a greater insight to be gained here?

Marshall McCluhan's gone. May he rest in peace. Now, the message is the medium, not the other way around. Blogs, Twitter streams, wiki entries, Facebook pages and FriendFeeds are simply a speculum vitae, a mirror of life that reflects what millions of people, in millions of places, are thinking about at any given point in time. No more, no less.

A Shopping Spree in the Marketplace of Ideas

In the ancient world, the Agora was the public marketplace in which all manner of goods and services were exchanged, and social contracts made. In the landmark 1990's work, The Cluetrain Manifesto, a radical, new idea emerged: Markets are Conversations.

So, if conversations between free people are the new marketplaces - the agora of ideas, if you will, then - by definition - there can never be "too much" or "too little" discussion of Barack Obama, Britney Spears, theoretical physics, standard poodles, noodle kugel or anything else.

Rather, there's exactly as much as the conversational marketplace wants there to be, regardless of whether you, I, or any other individual is interested in any given topic at any given point in time.

That's the very nature of public discourse in a free society. Right now, there are millions of online conversations going on, ranging from the inspired to the inane, the generic to the stupefyingly specific, and all stops in between.

So, pick one. Or several. You'll find the conversations that are right for you. You pays your money (or not, in most cases) and you takes your choice.

That's the beauty of the human interaction that's enabled by social media tools and technologies.

Conversations Just Want to be Free

So, can there ever be "too much" discussion of anything, then? The answer lies in the classic confrontation scene between the Emperor Joseph II and Mozart in the film and stageplay Amadeus. If conversations are the social "music" of free peoples, then, no, there can never be "too many notes." There are as "just as many as are required."

Besides, if someone's going to just "cut a few" notes, the question then arises: Who's going to do the cutting...and just which ones did you have in mind?