I've only met whirlwind genius Marc Canter once (yes Marc, I'm going to link to the wikipedia page you've been told not to edit), and I don't expect to meet another person who embodies the word "grok" more than him. Of course, it helps that he uses the word "grok" fairly often in his speech and writing, but Marc was there at the beginning of all this webby fun and I expect he'll be leading the charge all the way to the end, egging us on with his incredible visions and longshoreman's vocabulary.

While reading his recent ramblings on "Isolating components of social networking as web services" I threw out this comment:

The future of social media is the user, not the portal. Permeable borders are the next stage of social media evolution, now that PeepAgg, Ning, and KickApps have commoditized the basic functionality.

And Marc quoted me in a later post. No explanation, no commentary, he just let my words stand on their own merit. He's a busy man, of course, but I'm chalking this up as a good sign that I'm figuring out social media and the communities that drive it.

Now I really need to write a post explaining my statement, for all you grokophobes out there...