Are You Missing The “Social” Part Of Social Media?
Posted by Mitch on Mar 1, 2010
Okay, I get it. Twitter and Facebook can be used for business purposes. I know; I use them for business as well. Not that often, but obviously I do. Every blog post I write shows up on Twitter. One of my blogs shows up on Facebook every time I post. When I’m holding office hours I announce it on Twitter; never done it on Facebook, but I guess I should.
Yes, money can potentially be made from both Twitter and Facebook. But is that the only thing people can think of to do with it?
Remember when I wrote about Twit Cleaner a week ago? Man, that thing took off by storm. Not from my post, but from a lot of people who discovered it and decided to check things out. There were a lot of Twitter folks who suddenly saw their numbers drop drastically. I’m betting some of them have no idea why it happened, and think Twitter penalized them for something. Truthfully, all any of those people had to do was to look at their Twitter account every once in awhile and they’d have seen that many of their followers were talking about it, and looking through their accounts to see who was talking to them and who wasn’t.
Is it too much to ask for people to try to be social at least some of the time while they’re either on Twitter or Facebook? Do I have to keep repeating myself often enough on Twitter about not being selfish? Do I have to write my posts here and there about why Facebook seems to be lame as a social media entity?
I was reading another blog earlier today where a commenter wrote that people have no right to tell others how to use social media, and that if all he wants to do is use it to market his services and products that it’s his right. I don’t dispute that, though I hate it. What’s also people’s right is to be able to find a balance between being able to just talk to people and occasionally seeing something that they might be interested in that might also be an ad.
For instance, I’d have to say that I’ve gotten stricter in determining who I’m following when it comes to internet marketing or SEO topics. I don’t want to have to visit a site, then put my name and email address in to find out what something is about. Nope, not falling for that anymore; been on the internet way too long. These people are irksome enough to begin with, but on Twitter, since everything changes to a tiny URL, you never know where you’re going to end up.
Maybe I’m just being curmudgeonly; what are your thoughts on the social aspects of social media? Am I asking for too much?
Three Warnings Or Fears
Posted by Mitch on Feb 18, 2010
There are three things I feel compelled to talk about, none of which has anything to do with internet marketing, but one does have something to do with social media, so I’ll start with that one.
A few days ago, a federal judge decided that high school students should have the right to blast their teachers on Facebook or anywhere else because of the 1st amendment right to free speech. I was astonished when I read this, and it seems there’s a lot of folks, including the American Civil Liberties Union, who believe this is proper.
Sorry folks, but I’m not one of them. We had a local incident just like this, and the student who created the page was suspended and every student who signed up for it got detention. I agreed with suspending the student, but not for punishing everyone else who signed up, especially since some kids never said a word.
Here’s the thing. What this moron basically did was give license to anyone to find someone they don’t like, create a Facebook group in their name calling them whatever they want to do, then invite other people to come in and join the ugliness. And that person has no recourse whatsoever because of this bad interpretation of the 1st amendment. By the way, the first amendment doesn’t say everyone gets to say whatever they want whenever they want, which is why we can’t go around screaming “fire” in a crowded theater and many other things.
I wonder who he and the ACLU are going to feel when the first person either gets killed or commits suicide because of this ruling. And allowing kids to do that against their teachers is absurd; imagine the repercussions of this type of thing later on. If I’m the teacher, I’m failing this kid. And what happens when one kid starts doing this to another kid?
I can tell you this; if I knew someone was doing something like this to me, I’m going after them in more ways than you can imagine, and the last way will definitely be physical. No one has the right to slam an individual without expecting consequences, and whatever they are, outside of taking out anyone else who’s around, isn’t off limits. If you’re in the public eye, or a company, that’s different. Allowing students to publicly slam teachers… I see trouble brewing.
The next thing on my mind is news this week that the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, NY, this week produced a substance that was 250,000 times hotter than the sun. This is another group that’s trying to create things that should remain in space and far away from Earth, in this case mini-stars instead of a black hole. Now, maybe I’m just an alarmist, but I’m thinking having substances on the Earth, even if they don’t last long, that are hotter than the sun is a bad thing. I don’t care how far underground it is, that can’t be a good thing. For my own comfort, Long Island isn’t far enough away from me for them to be doing that kind of testing anyway. Does anyone else think this is a bad idea?
Finally, there’s a guy named George Church who is the top guy when it comes to mapping out genomes. He has actually gotten to the point where he believes we can and should create a neanderthal so that we can see if it might offer resistances to diseases and the like to humans of today. By the way, that link downloads an MP3 file of his interview talking about it. He also believes we should recreate things like dinosaurs and mammoths and the like so we can study them better.
Once again, I’m reminded of the Jeff Goldblum line in Jurassic Park: “Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” When this movie came out I thought about how cool it might be to recreate dinosaurs, but it’s now 17 years later, I’m no longer an idyllic 33 year old, and I’m thinking this is a bad idea as well. We have no idea what kinds of diseases these things had or just how lethal or smart they actually might have been, and reintroducing these things into our lives now is a horrible idea. The idea that we can create life that doesn’t exist anymore is scary to me; I can see how this one could get out of hand.
Oddly enough, I’m not against cloning, which one might think is the same thing. The thing about cloning is that it’s not like what people think it is. A clone of any animal is still a distinct and individual life form that will live a totally different existence and life than its predecessor, and we already know what the predecessor was and how we interacted with it.
Anyway, those are thoughts I’ve had today that I just finally had to write about. I know, my mind is in a weird place sometimes. Comments?
New Facebook Changes; This Is Better?
Posted by Mitch on Feb 6, 2010
Yesterday evening I signed onto Facebook to notice that there have been changes to the format once again. Please, someone tell me why they keep changing things there that don’t need changing.
The most immediate change I noticed was moving the options for doing things at the top of the site to the right rather than keeping them to the left. Since we here in America read left to right, I can’t say I was happy with that.
Next I noticed that the little image thing we used to see at the bottom left that took us to applications we wanted is now gone. It hasn’t been replaced, which is irritating as well. Now, to get into any applications, you always have to go back to the home page, where you have a menu to the left that I haven’t quite figured out yet how to modify so I can see the apps that I go to the most often.
Also, I tried to tag a couple of photos last night, which used to be a very easy process, and had problems doing that as well. First it wanted me to add a new application, which I turned down. Then when I was finally in the images section, I would select the tag tool, but whenever I clicked on the picture it would leave. Man, stuff just didn’t want to work with me last night.
All in all, I’m drastically not impressed with any of the new changes, and can’t wait until someone figures out how to change things through UserScripts.org, which allows you to change things up on the Firefox browser, which I’ve talked about before. I’m never against change, but one hopes it makes things easier and better, not more convoluted.
What are your thoughts about it? By the way, you’re probably going to see Valentines Day products up until the day before Valentines Day, unless I write about something that has a specific product. I hope no one forgets about it; next Sunday folks!
Do We Deserve Privacy Online?
Posted by Mitch on Jan 13, 2010
I just finished reading a story on MSNBC.com with the title Privacy is dead on Facebook. Get over it. The story pretty much laments the fact that there isn’t any privacy on Facebook, even with all their changes, and that it’s pretty much the story across the internet.
 Big Brother Is Plugged In |
Privacy on the internet is an interesting dichotomy. We all say we want to be able to disseminate whatever we want to and yet still retain a bit of anonymity here and there. I actually understand some of that, as Mitch isn’t my birth name, and I tell almost no one what my middle name is. If one decided to really dig deep on the internet, I’m sure they’d find both answers.
When I first got on the internet back in 1995, I didn’t understand what most of it meant. The first service I signed up for was AOL. Like many people, I got that disk in the mail, loaded it onto my computer, and the rest was history. So was my privacy, because pretty quickly I started getting all sorts of email from suppliers who contracted with AOL for my email address. And things took off from there.
Let’s talk about privacy for a little bit. Here’s the big hairy question in the room; do you really think that you can be online and have privacy? If you do, I’m sorry to say, you’re living in a dream world. People who have never been online can be found online. For some of those folks, it might cost a little bit of money, but most of them are online in some fashion. I did a quick check to find that my grandmother doesn’t have her name anywhere online, but my mother does.
Why is that? Because my grandmother has never had a credit card or a driver’s license. She’s never signed up for email or anything else online, and she hasn’t worked since, I believe, 1980 at least. She’s never left the country, so no passport. In other words, she’s basically a non-entity in the online world.
Mom, on the other hand, worked up until 1997. She had a couple of credit cards. She has an email address. Her name is on the mortgage of the house she owns. She can check her bank balances online. And her name is in the phone book. That’s enough information for Mom to have a trail by which people can find her online if they know her name. She has a picture online, courtesy of yours truly, but not with her name associated with it, so she’s fairly protected there.
Here’s the general thing. If you want privacy, don’t do anything that might encourage someone to invade it. If you sign up on Facebook, you’ve invited people to find you; maybe not the people you want to find you, but that’s too bad. If you put up pictures of yourself doing stupid things, you’ve invited yourself to scrutiny. I don’t know how real this is, but has anyone seen this blog called THE DAILY SCOOP OF STUPIDITY-THE PEOPLE OF FACEBOOK, where the author puts up pictures he supposedly pulled from Facebook? There was also this one post from College Candy on the types of photos on Facebook. If these are all real, not much privacy there, is it? Why would these people put these pictures up to begin with?
And some of the other stuff people put on Facebook is amazing. If you’re married and most of the world knows it, don’t put up that you’re single and looking for a member of the opposite sex for anything. If you work in certain industries, don’t put up your resume as if you’re looking for a job, and certainly don’t indicate your politics and religion, unless they’re the same as where you work (come on, we know that most places of employment have a political and religious leaning, whether they’re supposed to or not). Don’t sign up for games you don’t want anyone knowing you’re playing. Don’t become friends with people you don’t know just because they’re hot without knowing if they play well, and safely with others. Don’t join groups you think no one’s going to know about because it’ll probably show up in your feed. And, of course, check your privacy settings, but know that they can only go as far as the people you think you can trust who might out you anyway. If you’re worried that the wrong people will see it, keep it to yourself.
On to Twitter. One of my wife’s friends was shocked to find out that, after she found me and added me to her account, I could read what she was writing to her daughter. I told her she hadn’t protected her account, just added people, and that everyone could see what she was writing, and what was written back to her. She immediately closed her account. If you have no idea what something is, don’t sign up for it. She’s an intelligent woman who did a stupid thing; she should have known better.
 Saturation of Privacy |
People say things on Twitter all the time, then don’t think they should be held accountable for what they say because it’s their freedom of speech. Sorry Sparky, but freedom of speech comes with a cost and a consequence. If you don’t want to be judged, watch your language, watch what you have to say, and, well, shut up. If you say it, own up to it and move on.
During 2008’s presidential election, I dropped a lot of people for inappropriate things they were saying about Barack Obama. I kept doing so after the election, after his inauguration, and even now. I’ll call out business people who say stupid things, even at networking events, because those are people I’d never work with, and if they didn’t mean it they shouldn’t have said it. I’m an equal opportunity “caller-outer”, as I called out Harry Reid for his stupidity that was reported last week also.
Time to finish, as this has gotten long, and I could go on for another 1,000 words. There is no real privacy online, period. If you want some control, you have to learn how to protect some of your information. For instance, if you have a website, when you pay for the domain name hide the info so no one can track you back; I use that one all the time. If you want to write stupid stuff to or about other people, don’t do it from home, because you can be tracked easily enough by anyone with a little bit of internet savvy or that has friends with some internet savvy. Don’t think that hiding behind a fake name will protect you for long; if you’re irritating enough, you’ll be found out, even if by court order.
Trust me, you’re out there; it’s up to you to make sure you’re represented the way you want to be.
Disappointed In Ning
Posted by Mitch on Jan 11, 2010
Back in 2008, I wrote a post based on a complaint an acquaintance of mine had with LinkedIn. At that time, he was very active on LinkedIn, and he’d had enough of some of the bureaucratic stuff he was putting up with after all the time and energy he’d put into the group, for free no less.
At the time he hadn’t decided where he was going to go, but he eventually ended up on Ning. Ning allows people to create their own social or business communities and networks or join other communities already established.
Truthfully, when you first go there it doesn’t look like much. I don’t even know how you’d go about finding communities you’d want to join. In my case, I was invited to join his community, which I did because I had belonged to his community on both LinkedIn and on YahooGroups, which we all know is gone now. He started with one group within his community, then expanded it into many areas. He also got a lot of people to join, which shows how good he is as a networker.
Over time, I’ve come to realize that I just don’t get Ning at all. For all the things my friend has tried to do, there’s almost never been any real conversation that’s taken place. I’ve tried starting topics, only to have them die upon arrival. Frankly, I had hoped that it might be the thing to take the place of Ryze, which seemed to be in decline, but I can’t honestly say it’s done that for me. I’ve become more disenchanted with the one or two line messages that pop up from time to time, often seeming to be hawking some event or product rather than attempting to create a community of conversation.
Yeah, I know, it almost sounds like some of the rants against Facebook here and there, but at least Facebook is entertaining, if one wishes to be entertained. And Facebook is really easy to use; I just think that Ning is too minimalistic in some ways to be really viable for the masses. Also, what is the real purpose of Ning? Is it a business networking site, a social networking site… I don’t really know.
So, I’ve gone in and left every group I was a part of. I didn’t cancel my account, and I’m not sure why I haven’t canceled my account. Maybe I’m still hoping that someone or something will spark an interest and a real community that I can be a part of. It’s not going to be me, since I have my blogs and other outlets to take care of. I guess we’ll see where it all goes.
Anyone else have thoughts about Ning they’d like to share?
Is Instant Messaging Dying Out?
Posted by Mitch on Dec 3, 2009
I remember when I first got into instant messaging. It was 1997, and I had just learned about ICQ, which is still around. There was AIM, and I don’t remember if Yahoo Messenger was around at that time. But ICQ offered just what I and my family members needed.
Through ICQ, I was able to connect my dad to all of his brothers and sisters, a couple of my cousins, and some friends I’d met through newsgroups. Later on, I had some friends I would talk to. We’d talk often, pretty much every night, and it was fun. Of course, ICQ tanked in a big way, but still, there are other instant messaging systems; even Facebook has one.
These days, I can’t find almost anyone who’s using instant messaging. It’s pretty much been replaced by Twitter and Facebook, and even a little bit by email. Sure, email was around back in ‘97, but many friends wouldn’t use it for whatever reason.
Is instant messaging dying out, or am I just too old to have many friends who want to use it anymore? I ask that because it seems the people who say they still love instant messaging are all younger than 30. Obviously most of my friends are older. I only have one family member who still has an instant messaging account, and he’s rarely on. The friends I have accounts for almost never show up. There’s a couple of people I talk to sometimes during the day while they’re at work, and when I’m out of town my wife and I will try to have conversations through Yahoo (though I use Trillian), but that’s about it. I don’t even know anyone who uses Facebook’s instant messaging, though I’m sure there are people who do.
I also wonder if it’s why having Meebo on my business sites doesn’t seem to bring me much communications during the day when I hold office hours, which I announce on Twitter every once in awhile. I mean, one would think someone would take me up on the chance to speak to me live, but nope, doesn’t happen.
What are y’all thinking about this? Anyone else lamenting the demise of instant messaging, did you care, or have I just passed by the age where it makes sense for my friends and my business?
Why Are Facebook Groups So Lame?
Posted by Mitch on Oct 27, 2009
I’m a member of a local Chamber of Commerce. Once a month it has breakfast networking, usually at one of the Chamber member businesses. Once a month it has a lunch networking, moving around from a few different restaurants. Then every once in awhile it’s part of helping to host an after hours networking event, always at a Chamber members place, sometimes big, sometimes small.
I can’t say that I’m the master networker. I’m someone who won’t interrupt a conversation if there’s one going on, even if I know the people. If I don’t know them, I’m certainly not stepping into the middle of anything. Sometimes I know people who are there; something I don’t. It seems strange that there are times when I don’t know someone, especially since I’ve been a member 4 years now, and have been to enough of these things.
I’m starting to learn a few things, though. One, the breakfast networking events are, for the most part, useless. Yeah, every once in awhile I meet someone, but there’s no business I’m ever going to get out of it. Sometimes not very many people show up; that’s actually most of the time. The things officially start at 7:30, but people will trickle in until around 8:15 or so. I usually get to these things around 8AM; y’all know I don’t go to bed all that early. This doesn’t give much time for talking to anyone, but truthfully, I’m not much of a talker that early in the morning anyway.
Then it’s time for things to begin. The executive director talks for a bit, then everyone goes around saying their name and the name of their business. No one remembers anyone’s names; it’s kind of a waste if you ask me. Then the host gets at least 15 minutes to talk about themselves and their business; that’s fair. There’s always something to eat, but usually nothing I’ll eat, and something to drink, but nothing I’ll drink. I don’t think I’m going to any more of these.
The luncheons are pretty much the same. You get maybe 15 minutes to try to talk to someone before everything gets going. I’ve shown up early, only to realize that I might be alone because most people aren’t going to show up until around 15 minutes before the meal is served. Anyway, almost every lunch meeting, we end up going around the room introducing ourselves and the name of our business; no one remembers any of it. Then we have a presentation, and often it’s, well, a third class presentation. It’s not really anyone’s fault; not everyone is a professional speaker.
I also have a problem with most of the lunches. I can’t eat pasta or many carbs at lunch time because it puts me to sleep. I understand chicken is relatively inexpensive, but at every meal? I don’t eat the salad because there’s never a dressing I like. And dessert
; rarely anything I’d eat (not that I’m supposed to be eating it, but if lunch is lousy at least have a good dessert
). I’m considering not going to any more of these either; at $12 a shot, it seems like a terrible use of my time.
Where am I going with this as it relates to the title of this post? Facebook has tons of groups. If they don’t have at least 50,000 groups, I have no concept of how it works. There’s a group for almost anything your heart desires. Yet, for the most part, there’s no real conversation going on in any of them. I don’t always think it’s for a lack of trying; it’s just that people either want controversy, or they just want to lurk, or they join because they’re looking for something, not finding it, and moving on.
Right now I belong to 7 groups; two are groups I created. I used to belong to 13, but I killed the others. I’ve also joined groups, stayed a little while, then left. My reasoning is simple; no one was saying anything. And I don’t mean people were talking but saying nothing; I mean nothing at all.
Out of the groups I belong to now, there’s only one that has even a modicum of conversation, and it’s political. Almost everyone who’s joined the group believes in the same thing; that’s because those who don’t believe have been tossed out. It’s not that the group can’t handle people disagreeing; it’s that the group doesn’t want people coming in with an opposite point of view and suddenly going postal, which they have. They have their own group for that, so the moderator kicks them out. However, that leaves the rest of us without much to talk about all that often; that’s kind of a shame.
With my own groups, I have dismal participation. I’ve come up with enough discussion topics, but no one wants to say anything. I’ve posted links, and posted things on the wall, but without almost any response. It’s like I’m talking to myself; heck, I do that already in my own home, so I’m starting to think I don’t need to do that in public.
There’s this thing about some folks. They like to join stuff, but they don’t want to show themselves. It’s kind of like blogs. If you’re lucky, you have people who are reading your stuff on a consistent basis, but few of them write comments. But many people who don’t see any comments ever coming their way will stop writing entirely; that’s a shame, but it happens.
So, is it that the groups on Facebook are lame, the owners lame, the people who join lame, or am I just being unfair because I’m looking for something that’s just never going to happen? I do know this; I’m going to drop at least 3 groups I’m in now, and then we’ll see about the rest of them. Even my own groups; if no one’s really interested, then why keep it going?
Better uses of time; isn’t that what we all strive for?
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