Do trends distract you from the target?

A few years back before the economic winter, trend-spotting online was one of the favorite pastimes of early adopters and would-be hackers. Before the rise of Twitter, when a funny video or sweet pair of shoes were found only by the most diligent web surfers, people like Josh Spears became overnight branding sensations.

Stitching together the best in design, shopping, tech and ephemera, trend hunting seemed like it was becoming a legitimate profession back in 2006. Given our current stretched resources and economic blight, all the crap that you can find at sites like Uncrate or Notcot seem even more sadistically gratuitous.

Which raises the question…is following trends the equivalent of keeping your eye on the ball too long and therefore missing the game?! In other words, if we redirected the Tagged Tanakh development towards one of the tech trends listed at Techcrunch, would we be muddling the project or keeping it au courant? If we’re already incorporating the latest trends into our product do lists like these act as external validation?

If we know about blended learning or accelerated peer review platforms does that make our educational aims more visionary or just pretentious?! Both Maimonides and Joseph Caro were vilified for their major works upon their release because they were too ahead of the curve.

I can’t help but wonder if JPS Interactive runs the same risk with the Tagged Tanakh. Do people really want this and are they ready to deal with the ramifications of its adoption? Or are we just another trendy online experiment?

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