Robert Lane Greene decodes the significance of "you" and "i" in the world of new media

One day, at my office, I was alone to have lunch in the little kitchen located on the first floor with a view on the linden trees of the Avenue Louise in Brussels. There, on the table, I found the spring 2011 edition of Intelligent Life, The Economist's quarterly lifestyle magazine. On page 30, an excellent article by Robert Lane Greene captured my attention. Greene is an international correspondent for The Economist who is based in New York.

Through the article, Robert Lane Greene decodes significance of "you" and "i" in the world of new media. He made a first statement: in the 21st century, "you" and "i" are two very potent little words which are actually much more than just pronouns.

Greene, also author of You Are What You Speak (Delacorte Press), explains that Apple got there first, launching the iMac in 1998. Steve Jobs, Apple's boss, said that the "i" was for "internet" while behind him the words "individual", "instruct", "inform" and "inspire" appeared on screen. Apple went on and introduced the iBook, iPod, iPhone and iPad afterwards. Its sofware included an iLife suite with iTunes, iPhoto and iMovie. Obviously, "i" was also there to make you feel the iMac was made for you personally.

At the time of the iMac launch, "cyber" had lost its currency. Its place had been largely taken by "e-" for "electronic". As mentioned by Robert Lane Greene, the "e" was detached and re-attached to all manner of internet-based phenomena. People started sending e-cards and e-mails, engaged in e-commerce through e-tailers like eBay, etc. As shown by the rapid rise of e-books on e-readers, "e" is still working hard to this day.

Interestingly, Apple has never tried to copyright its "i". As a matter of fact, Cisco even made an iPhone before Apple ever did and Fujitsu made an iPad. Apple now shares "iPhone" with Cisco and bought "iPad" from Fujitsu. The BBC iPlayer, a popular way of catching programmes you missed by watching them online, then came along. Today, after four successful generations of the iPhone, anyone caught iNaming a digital product would look like an Apple imitator. The BBC is giving up the struggle and actually plans to broaden and transform the iPlayer into YouView.

Greene also explains that the BBC and its allies will thus be moving their tanks on to Google's lawn. The biggest "you" in the world is YouTube, bought by Google in 2006. It was originally intended for amateur video-sharing and quickly became a tremendous success. In 2006, Time magazine surprised fans of its venerable "Person of the Year" feature by giving the honour to "you" (see http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html), complete with a nice cover saying "Yes, you. You control the Information Age. Welcome to your world."

Greene continues: "The "you" ethos survives in the occasional home-made breakthrough video like last year's "Gap Yah", and in offshoots like the amateur-hour YouPorn." But "you" has not been as productive as "i" and product-namers have not taken the obvious next step: "u". I was able to find only two examples: U-Verse, AT&T's bundle of high-speed internet and media services, as well as Ustream, one leading live interactive broadcast platform.

i is also the name of the baffling new snack version of the British newspaper the Independent containing atricles of maximum 400 words, as well as a Portuguese paper, in which the i is clearly linked to the word informação.

Since we tend to be quite fond of both ourselves and those like us, why are we not seeing more of "we"? OurSpace was a black American alternative to the early social-networking site Myspace but it did not fly. America's Us magazine about famous beautiful people the reader will never meet is popular but "we" simply can't compete with "you" and "i".

No matter what, Robert Lane Greene comes to the following very convincing conclusion: "Your iPod and your YouTube habits are both about you, not me, and my iPod and YouTube are about me, thank you very much. How many of us really see the You in YouTube as a plural? [...] As technology gets better at giving each of us what we want, or think we want, the world of you and I and he and she all coming together as we is becoming a thing of the past."