The Inquisitr » social media

Our data will always be misused

Steven Hodson — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 21:52:41 +0000

There is this Utopian viewpoint propagated by the social media mavens that while our personal data is one of our more important processions; both on-line and off-line, but we should feel safe with letting it become the property of companies and governments just because they have some cool social media interface to keep us occupied with.

The problem with this viewpoint is that it is delusional. Regardless of the organization, government, or business your personal data is in many cases the only commodity that they have that allows them to stay in business, or in the case of governments – in power. To think otherwise is short-sighted and only empowers the parties we entrust our data with to act more like slum lords than caretakers of the most important information in the world.

In many cases we make a decision; consciously or unconsciously, that whatever is being offered in exchange for that data is worth accepting the inherent risks that your data may be misused at some point. Sure we hear all the horror stories about how this company or that government agency has been caught misusing people’s personal information but that doesn’t seem to impede our willingness to keep spreading our data around the web.

In order to understand the breadth of the collecting, dissemination, and misuse of our data we need to understand how the different parties involved in this massive collection of personal data continually convince us their overall intentions are good.

It isn’t just how our data is misused on the web either as we are seeing more and more how governments especially, and in some cases in collusion with corporations, are creating massive databases containing even our most basic information like DNA. Under the guise of protecting society we have governments – at all levels – are increasingly using all the modern technological tools at their disposal to build and continually add to an increasing number of databases.

Whether it be from the information we are required to hand over for our driver’s license to DNA databases our data governments are continually adding more information about us. Traffic camera are being touted as a way to increase the security of everything including towns trying to give the illusion of safety to its residents living in this type of electronic gated community. CCTV camera in general are monitoring more and more cities around the world to the point that individuals can be tracked going about their daily activity with all the digital information being stored in these databases.

Increasingly these once disparate databases are able to talk to each other which allows any government agency to create an extensive profile of just about any individual in the world. It has become a priority with many governments to collect as much data about its citizens as possible from whatever avenues that are open to them and by any means possible.

Case in point is the the report out that the British police officers are routinely arresting people so that under British law they DNA is added to their national database.

Police officers are now routinely arresting people in order to add their DNA sample to the national police database, an inquiry will allege tomorrow.

The review of the national DNA database by the government’s human genetics commission also raises the possibility that the DNA profiles of three-quarters of young black males, aged 18 to 35, are now on the database.

The human genetics commission report, Nothing to hide, nothing to fear?, says the national DNA database for England and Wales is already the largest in the world, at 5 million profiles and growing, yet has no clear statutory basis or independent oversight.

The highly critical report from the government’s advisory body on the development of human genetics is published as the number of innocent people on the database is disclosed to be far higher than previously thought ‑ nearing 1 million.

Source: The Guardian – via Boing Boing

While corporations might do whatever they can to collect our data it is primarily for financial gain whereas with governments it is more about finding ways to control its citizenry. There is nothing benevolent behind their reasoning beyond their own self-preservation and their control of power. Parties in power may shift but “government” stays the same and with each successive group of people in power the objective is to stay in that position of power.

To maintain that status quo technology is allowing them to control the one variable that has always given them the most problems – us.

There is one basic tenet when it comes to business: make as much money as possible by any means at their disposal and without any regard to laws and the rights of individuals. No matter how you argue this point when it comes down to the very core reason of business this attitude can be considered their First Law.

For the longest time corporations were limited to extremely generalized information about demographics. This was achieved by surveys, viewing patterns, shopping patterns, and social patterns.

Then along comes the Internet. In the beginning much of the data gleaned was similar to that collected pre-Internet although improved to an extent by modern technological data analysis methods. It was still a time of generalized information with only a glimmer of personal information making its way into growing corporate databases.

Corporations have proven over an over that until they are caught with their hands in the cookie jar their concern for consumer rights isn’t part of their money making equations.

It wasn’t until the coming of social media though that we saw the rise of web based businesses whose whole existence in nothing more than a disguise created in order to collect our personal data. It doesn’t matter how cute their names are or how they pontificate about openness and transparency. It doesn’t matter how they brag about giving the average person an avenue to be creative – to become a part of the social elite. It doesn’t matter about all the warm and fuzzy words like user generated content, social conversation, or even the most basic human emotive word – friends.

It is all about the data and the more personal they can convince you to be the more you are worth to them. They will do anything, say anything, or make you agree to EULAs or TOSs that give them exclusive control over your information shared on their systems.

Regardless of how you want to beleaguer this point the fact is that when you boil all these businesses down to what is their core value to anyone it all comes back to your personal information. That is the only value that any of these businesses like Facebook, Twitter or any one of the hundred look-a-likes that spring up every week have to anyone. It is that information that brings in the millions of dollars of advertising or makes them attractive to be the object of a purchase by a bigger company that wants that data.

It is true that for the most part we all walk into this deal with both the governments and the corporations with open eyes. For the most part … however that doesn’t mean that we should think that all this collection of our personal data is being done for any type of altruistic reasons.

Whether it be the simple act of entering our email in a form to friending some new person on a social network to click the ‘like’ link on a picture at some point all that personal data you are creating every day is going to become nothing more than an entry in a spreadsheet somewhere to be sliced and diced for money. You aren’t an avatar to either the government or corporation. You are a dollar sign to business and a potential danger to society to governments.

They can spew out all the glib speeches they like about respecting the private citizen or the rights of the consumer but in the end it is all about your data and how it will benefit those in the corporate boardroom or the halls of political power.

No matter how many rose colored glasses you might wear or how much you might want to believe in all the spin there is one simple fact when it comes to your personal data.

It will get misused.

Deconstructing the LEGO Internet

Steven Hodson — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 20:57:26 +0000

Earlier this week Jesse Stay, the man behind the Twitter service SocialToo, wrote a rather interesting post suggesting that in order to move the web forward to that mystical 3.0 version we need to start looking at as a bunch of building blocks. His feeling is that in order to move beyond the current web as a platform idea we should be getting the foundation of the building block web stabilized.

For Jesse it is a matter of taking the foundations being but together by services like Twitter, Facebook, and Google off in new directions by adding new blocks that build off of those foundation blocks.

When I think building blocks I think Lego bricks. Each one has its own unique size and shape, and when you take the basic lego bricks you can add your own, making something unique and powerful. The web, as a whole, is evolving towards this state. We see Twitter, with its open platform enabling others to share in ways they were never able to share before in their own applications. We see Facebook and Facebook Connect enabling businesses to incorporate Facebook activity, relationships, and more right in the bounds of their own brand (Jeremiah Owyang suggested we might call this “farming”). Recently, we saw Google Wave producing ways for users to collaborate in ways they were never able to before, and embed these in new ways into external environments.

Shortly after Jesse’s post another smart blogger picked up on the thought with a post of his own. In The Lego Internet Dan Morrill at TechWag says that the idea might make a lot of sense except that potential ramifications of building out the new web based on what is hoped to be stable services provided by the foundation.

The idea makes a lot of sense when it comes right down to it, but with all the problems with back end data providers lately and how this is taking a toll on the public perception of cloud computing (no matter what the issue is, the popular press keeps on pinging cloud computing for this) and the worry that all that hard worked data is going to suddenly get vaporized is going to slow down the adoption of any building block internet.

Dan goes on to point out the underlying problem that we experience even today that could slow, or kill off any chance of a building block web.

Which brings us to the one thing that will kill the Lego building block internet; it will be all about service and how service is perceived by the end user. Would anyone have trusted Facebook Connect four years ago and would anyone trust a MySpace connect now? If a service provider (and if you are providing a widget or an API, you are a service provider) fails, then it becomes a problem for the entire ecosystem that is build around that service. If the service becomes unreliable, then people will flee the ecosystem. Even a hint that a service provider is not reliable will cause adoption issues.

The biggest problem behind this idea of a building block web can be evidenced even today with the widespread outage experienced by Twitter. It was an outage that lasted for most of the morning during which time any services that relied on Twitter were basically toast. You can’t build a longterm stable business on top of that kind of thing but it is only the most recent of many examples of cloud based systems taking a crap all over the place (Microsoft/Danger/Sidekick anyone?).

When even a company like Amazon can experience an outage as they did when their S3 cloud went down in February or Google’s Gmail can cause havoc every time it goes down for even an hour for whatever reason how can we say we have a solid foundation to build on.

Even beyond those big service providers what happens when even individual bloggers decide at some point that they want to try some new service on their blog only to have it come back and bite them on the ass. A good example of this is the idea of 3rd party comment platform providers like Disqus, Intense Debate, and JS-Kit that are all the rage.

Here we have the idea of a building block web in a microcosm in that we the bloggers provide the foundation for them to build their service on in return for being able to keep the conversation happening around the post regardless of where comments might be made in the wild. We install these platforms thinking that they are the answer for a possible problem we have been led to think exists.

What happens though when we decide that either we want to use one of the other systems or return to the built-in commenting systems of our blogging platform. Sure we’re told that we can export and then import all those stored comments that have been made on these other platforms but can we really?

Well if the experience that my good friend Mark Hopkins is going through we might want to think twice

Something that’s been particularly irritating – the fact that all the third party comment systems (from JS-Kit to Disqus (especially Disqus) to Intense Debate) make it all but impossible to transfer comments from one system to the other.

I know myself I have had problems with comment platforms on my one blog when moving from Disqus to JS-Kit. Whatever comments I had before even though they were suppose to be there were gone. This doesn’t bode well for me when it comes to thinking about going back to stock comments at Shooting at Bubbles.

My point here is that if we can’t rely on the commonality in the most basic thing like blog comments how can we expect blocks built on top of other services to be stable enough to invest our time in – especially consider that most of them are only looking for exit strategies … then what?

Even among the foundation companies and yes at this point Twitter can be included one has to wonder if they are stable enough both in service and vision. Twitter has bragged about their vision but their service has yet to be proven in my opinion. When it comes to a company like Google there is no question about the stability of their service but what about their vision?

Jesse makes the following point about Google in his post as evidence of their vision for a building block web build around sociality

Now look at Google. Google understands this well. They are providing Friend Connect, OpenSocial, Android, Wave (on 3 different levels!), and letting Developers decide what to do with them. Google is adding to this new platform giving developers new building blocks to play with and create cool things with.

Unfortunately I disagree with Jesse and point to exactly the same things as a reason why Google doesn’t have a solid enough vision of what a social web is in order to create building blocks off of. How can one possibly plan to build anything let alone intricate social applications if you don’t know where your foundation is going never mind knowing where it is in the first place.

As nice as the idea of a LEGO style idea of the web might be I don’t believe we are anywhere close enough to building one that we can trust to be there the next day or until the next great idea comes along.

image credits: google lego / human lego figure / corner lego art

Penelope talks miscarriage – gets slammed, Jarvis talks penis – gets patted on back

Steven Hodson — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 23:55:32 +0000

What are the limits to the conversation in our social media world?

At what point does it become either too much information (TMI) or cross the line of polite society?

Back near the end of September Penelope Trunk, CEO of BrazeenCareerist.com threw the following message out on Twitter

“I’m in a board meeting. Having a miscarriage. Thank goodness, because there’s a fucked-up 3-week hoop-jump to have an abortion in Wisconsin.”

Not only did that one message cause her a lot of flack on Twitter and her blog but she ended up having to defend herself on CNN as well as in the original and follow-up post. Everything from her womanhood to her common sense was questioned in the days that followed. I even had a bit of a hard time with it I will admit but in the end as I discussed on a podcast with my friend Sean I had to giver her credit for being willing to do what she did.

Then today I saw a post come through my feedreader written by Jeff Jarvis where he talks some more about the recent operation he has as a result of his run in with prostate cancer. The post was title Small c: The penis post and my first reaction was as probably with most men as they read the post one of winching.

I didn’t think that it was another case of TMI as Jeff was afraid of and as with Penelope I give the man credit for being willing to lay his life bare like this.

We men have complicated relationships with our penises, of course. We follow them (that’s why they’re in front). They tell us what we like. They have minds of their own. We anthropomorphize them; some give them names (I don’t; it’s just it). So when I see mine looking like an emaciated, depressed, shrunken old man in a hospital bed, well, it’s hard not to empathize.

However when it came to the reaction to Jeff’s post it was the total opposite from what Penelope experienced. Read through the comments to his post and all you see are pats on the back, commiserations with what he was going through, and well wishes for his recovery.

On one hand we have a woman who experiences a traumatic experience and talks about it only to get lambasted for it. Then on the other hand we have a man writing about a traumatic experience but he gets kudos for doing so. Some-one care to explain to me the double standard here?

Why is it okay for a man to write about his dick and not being able to use it – possibly ever again – but it isn’t okay for a woman to write about that she was losing a fetus?

So much for the enlightenment and open conversation that we all seem to be proclaiming is the new social world we are living in. As usual it turns out to be nothing more than a pile of bullshit and if you don’t think so just follow the insanity that is swirling around the death of a gay singer.

Daily Mail article on Gately’s death sparks social media outrage

Kim LaCapria — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:06:51 +0000

Daily Fail Mail writer Jan Moir’s article, originally titled Why there was nothing ‘natural’ about Stephen Gately’s death, has taken over Twitter, spawned a Facebook group and crashed a website that handles press complaints.

The piece, now titled A strange, lonely and troubling death…, has spawned the Twitter hashtag #thedailymailisgay and angry tweets about the article’s implications are coming at the rate of hundreds a minute. Moir’s conclusions are cringe-worthy, embarrassing to read and brings to mind the feeling one gets when an off-color remark is overheard at a party.

The general tone permeating the piece implies that Gately died, essentially, of his gayness. That homosexuality is somehow an inherent moral disease that eats away at a person, making the sudden death of an otherwise apparently healthy 33-year-old man not necessarily shocking. The fact that Gately was found by a man other than his partner (who stayed the night!!!) and that he’d >gasp< smoked cannabis sometime that evening are held up as proof that his death was not only to be expected, but it’s implicit that it was somehow deserved. What does one expect, hosting strange gay men for sleepovers and puffing the magic dragon? Nevermind that the UK as a whole is booze-soaked and marijuana has no recorded fatalities, he was a pot-smoking homo!

Reaction to the piece was quick and painful across the blogosphere. Twitter big shot Stephen Fry opined, “I gather a repulsive nobody writing in a paper no one of any decency would be seen dead with has written something loathesome and inhumane. . . .” and Brit news parody site satirized Moir’s angle with a similar hateful dismissal of her career:

One Mail reader told us, “All she did was speak the truth about Stephen Gately’s unusual death, because every Daily Mail reader knows that the gays can only die if you drive a wooden stake through their heart.”

“His death is very suspicious, maybe someone should think about interviewing all the immigrants, eh?”

Should you doubt Moir’s homophobia or want to give the woman the benefit of the doubt, pay close attention to this portion. While Moir’s implications are hateful and hurtful, she wraps it all up in a discriminatory bow at the end. Overlooking the much more plentiful instances of straight on straight violence, Moir doesn’t pass up the opportunity to cast aspersions on the many happy gay couples both in the UK and abroad:

Another real sadness about Gately’s death is that it strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships.

Gay activists are always calling for tolerance and understanding about same-sex relationships, arguing that they are just the same as heterosexual marriages. Not everyone, they say, is like George Michael.

Of course, in many cases this may be true. Yet the recent death of Kevin McGee, the former husband of Little Britain star Matt Lucas, and now the dubious events of Gately’s last night raise troubling questions about what happened.

Coke Zero Facebook app will find your doppleganger… someday

Kim LaCapria — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 21:55:12 +0000

Well, that was disappointing.

The techno-spooky interface of Coke Zero’s new website, billing itself as a “worldwide social experiment,” starts with words on the screen: If Coke Zero has Coke’s taste… is it possible someone out there has your face? Okay, I’m not really seeing the tie in, but I play along because who doesn’t get sucked in by any new “picture of you” analyzing app? Do I look like celebrities? Do I look evil? Am I hot, or not?

Using the same pic I use here instead of activating my webcam- which lies at such an unflattering angle it throws me into a self-esteem downward spiral that lasts for days- I carefully line x’s over my eyes to set the twin-search-o-later in motion. And… nothing. No one else is playing! Well, some people are but so far, the face database is only 22% full. So in order to work, the remaining 78% of people who need to participate still have to sign up.

Now I want to know who I look like, damnit! Everybody go sign up so I can find out. Coke says that if you change your mind about being in the face database, they’ll remove your information within 48 hours. The app currently has 43 reviews on Facebook- one user states the database has only grown 3% in the past three days, and some other users posted as far back as a month ago that the app wasn’ t yet returning results. So there’s also a chance that by the time it tells you you look like someone, you’ll be too old to resemble them anymore, anyway. Bummer.

ETA: The app also has a Wikipedia entry, which is on the chopping block for notability, cite issues and clearly being written by Coke.

Technology

Facial Profiler leverages one of the face-detection industry’s most advanced multi-modal biometric platforms. Previously designed to locate specific individuals from within a large pool of candidates, the matching engine was modified for Coke Zero’s app. A modification was necessary because Facial Profiler doesn’t seek to find the identity of the person performing the search, but instead seeks to match that person to Facebook users who resemble them. This modified technology delivers match results in real time, based on the order in which the search requests are received.

Social Media Aspects

More than a Facebook app and search tool, Facial Profiler underscores the evolution of social media. The app is new pathway in social networking that enables people to connect outside of their everyday routines of work, school, friends or hobbies.

[Via Mashable]

Well isn’t that just spiffy – get paid to make new friends

Steven Hodson — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 17:50:45 +0000

Being able to sift out the spammers, never-ending supply of social media gurus, and just plain irritating “let me show you how to get x number of followers’ is hard enough but now we have a new player in the field who will pay people to try and be your friend.

Yes folks with the help of a new entry in the social media field called Spiffbox you to can earn real money being an irritating shit. Playing off of our desire to make money with the least amount of effort Spiffbox will give you points for every action you take on their network. Points for simply creating a profile, bombarding other members with meaningless messages, and (optionally of course) taking part in surveys or accept merchant offers.

The more you interact the more points you earn and the moment you cross the magical threshold of 2,000 point you can redeem it for a check worth $20.00. Apparently earning all that cash isn’t hard since accepting a chat request earns you 28 points, accepting a friend request nets you 10 points. So in no time you could be earning yourself hoards of cash should you be willing to prostitute yourself because in my opinion this is exactly what you are doing. Not to mention making a mockery of social media in general.

A big thanks to Sarah Perez at ReadWriteWeb for the warning on this ridiculousness and if a service ever needed a rating this is mine for Spiffbox

Going too far? Penelope Trunk’s miscarriage tweet divides social media types

Kim LaCapria — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:53:04 +0000

Was it TMI or a welcome, candid look into women’s workplace issues?

Penelope Trunk, of The Brazen Careerist, tweeted to her now-19,000 followers during a work function that she was currently miscarrying. Like, that second. Trunk said:

I’m in a board meeting. Having a miscarriage. Thank goodness, because there’s a f***ed-up 3-week hoop-jump to have an abortion in Wisconsin.

The tweet quickly divided readers. Even feminist snark blog Jezebel was scornful, equating the post to hearing about a male colleague’s hemorrhoids. And the most surprising (to me) outrage is coming from pro-choice, feminist bloggers. Jezebel’s Lindsay goes on to chastise Trunk for her levity:

And, unfortunately for everyone, now that this has gone national, the context and way in which Trunk framed this confirms the worst and most fantastical ideas of the anti-choice movement: that women (especially career women!) who have abortions all do so casually and callously on their lunch breaks, the way one might get a manicure. If Trunk thinks she’s done anything to help women in Wisconsin get better access to abortions (her defensive post asks readers to donate to Planned Parenthood), she obviously doesn’t know anything about how the anti-choice movement works.

Okay, I have to admit here that my views on abortion are gray to say the least. And irrelevant to this post. But I truly found that stance shocking because- well, whatever happened to on demand and without apology? If, out of a professional context, a woman has to tread lightly, what progress have we made? (In a follow-up post, Trunk describes the “hoops” she alludes to earlier, using her influence to spotlight the issue many midwestern women face seeking abortions.)

While Trunk may have breached boundaries of professional etiquette (really, who wouldn’t have felt like a total schmuck banging on about ROI only to find out later the person next to them was experiencing a minor medical emergency?), she’s doubtlessly helped along a few women who were feeling guilt at their own pregnancy-ending ambivalence, whether due to miscarriage or abortion. Penelope Trunk is in a strange spot because professionally, because she focuses largely on the convergence of career and lifestyle/life. I doubt liveblogging a pregnancy loss is the next big Twitter trend, but did Trunk “go too far” in her candor? Or did she help destigmatize an event that affects the majority of the female workforce at some point in their careers?

The absolute best picture describing Web 2.0 and Social Media

Steven Hodson — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 20:04:14 +0000

This has to be the absolute best picture ever to illustrate the whole Web 2.0 and Social Media world – most days anyway.

Anyone with some attention to sell, I seem to have lost some of mine.

Steven Hodson — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 23:07:28 +0000

Did you see those last three Twitter messages that flew by?

Did you really read all the messages posted to your Facebook timeline in the last hour?

Have you managed to get caught up with all those RSS feeds that piled into your feed reader since you logged off last night?

How close are you to screaming email bankruptcy from the highest office building in the city?

Just how many alerts have you missed in the last couple of hours from Google, your never ending beeping Blackberry, from some iPhone app you thought would make things easier?

How many of you have jokingly asked in the last half hour if someone had a few hours they could sell you because you don’t seem to have enough of your own?

Everything is clamoring for your attention and no matter how hard you try at some point you get that blank deer caught in the headlights look as you realize that there is just too much information screaming for your attention and time. As your brain begins to freeze up in a spastic firing of neurons crying out for respite you begin to realize that the majority of all that stuff clamoring for your attention is nothing more than noise.

The problem is that as we are inexorably led to a web where things really do happen in real-time, is that more and more noise is being generated. This is leading us to a point where we are having to forego any real depth to the few and far between bits of real information fight for our attention. Everything is bite size, short posts, 140 character messages, Facebook Lite, even television commercials are spoken faster so more can fit in a smaller time scale.

Documents created today will stand a good chance of being outdated by tomorrow. News that was fresh and important is almost outdated by the time you hit the publish button. Information distribution cycles are getting squeezed unmercifully and as a result the moment we take our eyes off of the screen we begin to feel the cold sweat of the fear we are going to miss something.

Never mind about daydreaming, or having a friendly conversation over coffee without a laptop or smartphone close. God forbid we should eschew undivided one on one attention in favor of zeros and ones sent to us over the Web. Even conversations are becoming some sort of universal shorthand so that we can get our thoughts across as quick as possible and move onto the next bit-size morsel of information that has been put on a diet.

There is no doubt that this is the direction our world is headed in – a world where everything comes at you all at once and where you hope that you can maintain some sort of attention long enough to catch everything so that you don’t miss those few and far between important snack bite sizes pieces of information. Chances are that being the incredibly intelligent race that we are that we will find ways to cope with the constant onslaught of information.

Coping however is not the same as learning and growing. Sure we might actually have people who thrive in this kind of environment but for the majority the assault on our ever decreasing attention spans may be a bigger cost that we might think.

Once again @Facebook rips off @Twitter, but who really cares anymore

Steven Hodson — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 02:45:00 +0000

This is getting borderline ridiculous.

The big news of the Internet today? Facebook yet again takes a page out of the Twitter playbook. As Duncan reported here earlier Facebook is starting to rollout what they refer to as @mentions. Of course the immediate reaction across the tech blogosphere was one of copycatism to taking a huge bite out of Twitter.

Look if we haven’t figure it out yet that Facebook doesn’t have a clue about social media outside of its own walled garden and therefore either has to buy it or ‘borrow’ ideas from those that do then you all need to sit back and take a break. This is neither earth shattering nor is it any great improvement on the already borderline confusing Facebook experience. What is slightly humorous is the light hearted attitude that everyone has over the fact that Facebook with all it’s VC money and millions upon millions of users has to resort to these type of methods to even try and stay current.

Is that what innovation has come down to these days? Can’t come up with something original or at least a vast improvement on the mousetrap we’ll just ‘borrow’ someone else’s ideas. This is what Web 2.0 is all about?

Sure Facebook can couch it all as some new and cool by using words like tagging and @mentions but the fact is it is nothing new nor is it an improvement. As much as people might be making assumptions how this new wondrous addition is going to help swing even more people to Facebook and away from Twitter I have to agree with Corvida at SheGeeks.net when she says

Could this cause you to switch from Twitter to Facebook? Personally, no. These are two different communities that I participate in. My reasons for using each varies due to the community ties.

Facebook is Facebook and Twitter is Twitter – they serve two totally different needs and no matter how hard Facebook tries it will never be Twitter and neither will they be responsible for the death of Twitter.

Now can we get on to more important things …. say checking out some Hawtness.

For all the good of social media is it fixing the root problems

Steven Hodson — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 21:49:10 +0000

Social media has become the voice of the common person who with enough pull behind them can make companies sit up and listen. Not everyone has that kind of pull but we all relish every story of success of those that do succeed in making companies listen to them and by sheer consumer peer pressure have wrongs righted.

Even though people like myself with small selective circles of friends and followers can complain and rant until the sun comes up the chances of us seeing the same reaction that people like Heather Armstrong (Dooce), Chris Brogan, or any number of popular bloggers is slim to none. It is people like those mention though that have made a big difference in how companies are beginning to react to negative comments and unhappy consumers.

Now as much as even little changes like these might warm the hearts of the social media mavens Bob Knorpp from BeanCast raises an important point – the underlying problem that is driving people to things like Twitter and Facebook is being ignored.

What bothers me, though, is the underlying problem that seems to be ignored in all of this: Customers wouldn’t feel the need to embarrass us en masse, if our customer service channels weren’t so completely broken. And don’t forget part two, which Len hinted at: What good is it to address social media as a customer service channel when we keep driving people to such venues with our lousy customer service?

For all the good that @comcastcares does on Twitter in order to help unhappy customers Comcast is still reviled for its lousy service. So really what good does all this social media effort achieve when the whole reason that people are driven to such public venues like Twitter and Facebook to get some sort of satisfaction. As well, which Bob points out – what happens when social media loses all its luster or we have all moved onto the next shiny thing.

It could be looked at from the company’s point of view that this is just a minor bump in the road where a minor number of natives are getting restless. So in the meantime just do what needs to be done to appease them and wait for this newest ‘consumer consciousness’ to blow over. Then it will be back to business as usual, because when you really think about only a very small fraction of consumers even have an idea about what social media is, and an even smaller fraction of those have big enough mouths to cause problems.

Keep that minority happy and feed their egos, letting them think they’re making a difference and like every March storm it will all blow over. The only thing that keeps companies awake at night is if social media doesn’t go away when the next new shiny thing shows up on the horizon. For them the real nightmare is when even people like you and me begin to be able to exert the same power as the big names in social media.

When that happens we will know that the tide has changed and companies will finally have to accept that pacification of a few isn’t an option anymore, and at that point we may actually see companies change for good.

It’s a good dream to have.

Apple’s love/hate relationship with its users

Steven Hodson — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 23:05:00 +0000

Apple is an anomaly in today’s tech world.

Long the mainstay of small segment of computer users it had a loyal following who would probably leap off of cliffs if Steve Jobs asked them to, especially if asked during one of his famous keynote speeches. There is no denying that all that faith and admiration in both the man and the products isn’t well placed. The iPhone has transformed the whole smart phone industry, the iPod/iTunes has revolutionized the music industry and could have the same effect on video, and the Mac in all its variations is a beautiful and excellent computer.

When it comes to the man the loyal followers have him to thank for first bringing the company back from the brink of disaster and then making it more popular than it ever has been before. In return for this ‘fandom’ Apple and Steve Jobs continue to challenge the established ideas of how we perceive our electronic devices and provide us with some of the best designed gadgets to fill our days with – and in the process Apple is making money hand over fist. With over $25 billion cash in their war chest Apple is set to do basically whatever it wants.

All this goodness and light however isn’t without its spots of tarnish – spots that are increasing both in number and size.

As hard as Apple tries to clean up those spots they aren’t going away. No longer will people blindly sign NDA’s over their iPhone exploding, no longer will they be silent about Apple’s heavy-handedness. Now even the little things like Apple breaking developer reference links or the silence about the removal of something like the ZFS file system are getting attention.

Attention that Apple continually ignores as it sits behind its wall at Cupertino. However this is the age of the social web and the empowerment of the consumer where even the most loyal Apple consumer has a voice – and aren’t afraid to use it. After all it’s pretty easy – set up a blog, join Twitter, add friends on Facebook. The avenues for expression of dissatisfaction are all there and people are using them with increasing frequency.

Except Apple for the most part isn’t listening, or at least even if they are they are not responding. They chose to ignore the very people who have dedicated much of their computing life to advocating the Apple way of life. They have believed enough in Steve Jobs and the company to add their portion to that $25 billion war chest.

In a world where, especially the tech part of it, where social media is becoming the powerhouse of consumer interaction Apple’s silence is excruciatingly loud. As Tom Foremski writes

This is strange. This means Apple must have a company policy to not engage in social media at all. There can be no other explanation.

This company directive must come from the top. Steve Jobs has a reputation as a micro-manager and control freak.

And on the social web there is no control over your message. It will be “annotated” by thousands, potentially millions of people. It takes balls to put yourself in front of people on the social web.

Apple seems to be lacking the balls.

For all the life long fans have given to Apple there will be a breaking point as dissatisfaction with this silent treatment from the company that many of them love reaches a breaking point. It might not be a breaking that will turn that fan base away from the company but it is one that may seriously discourage any new people from taking up the Apple mantra.

People in this new social media world have the power to change things a lot more than they may realize but definitely more than companies realize. Apple may have once benefited from its autocratic, elitist, “we know best” attitude but as we are finding with every other business that holds that same attitude that world is gone. Once again Tom phrases it well when he says

The other thing people will remember is when you show you aren’t listening, you aren’t interested, you come across as arrogant. You have $26 billion in cash earned from your customers and you don’t care about your customers, what they are saying about you, what problems they are having. That’s memorable.

Very memorable.

The coming trust crisis in the social media expert space

Duncan Riley — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 10:04:02 +0000

I had the privilege of attending my second Gnomedex two weeks ago and there was a regularly used joke: everyone claims to be a “social media expert” just because they’ve used Twitter.

The line may seem glib, but it has serious roots. The label social media expert is being used by all and sundry just because they have used Twitter, or started a blog, or at the extreme, have a Facebook account. It’s not a title I’ve ever applied to myself, although it has been applied to me on occasion. I’m probably qualified to use it given my experience, but I have no particular interest in being a “social media expert.” I’d rather use my skills to build something quantifiable that doesn’t involve me telling others at every opportunity that I have some idea about what I’m doing.

The proliferation of social media has given rise to a proliferation of conferences and speaking gigs, and it’s a space that has been readily filled by those who profess to be experts in the field. Some genuinely do feature those worthy of the title, and I have the opportunity of sitting on a panel at the Future of Influence Summit Tuesday (Monday US time), a conference that is being held simultaneously (and at times connected by video) in both Sydney and Silicon Valley. But many don’t.

The proliferation of “social media experts” goes unchallenged for now, at the behest of a general populous who perhaps doesn’t have the knowledge yet to spot someone well qualified, vs. someone who can bluff their way through. This won’t always be the case, and eventually the social media space faces a trust crisis as the speaking/ guru market becomes even more flooded by those not really worthy of the title.

The trust crisis from the bottom and the top

The easy presumption here is to presume that the trust crisis will be led by those at the bottom. Anyone can put their hand up and say “I’m a social media expert” in the same way every personal network has someone who can install Windows and run a virus scan calls themselves a “computer expert.” That’s only part of the picture though, because the trust crisis will also be driven by those at the top of the chain.

Take for example Australia’s first “Twitter conference” being held this coming November. The one thing that struck me about the makeup of the conference is that it consists nearly entirely of journalists. Each participant is eminently qualified in terms of their skills as journalists, but apparently this now means they’re Twitter experts, or in a broader sense social media experts. It’s a classic case of Johnny come lately; the Australian media was late to the Twitter party, and although some have embraced it, that doesn’t mean that they’re now all Twitter experts by any stretch, let alone social media experts.

To be fair though, I may have singled out the “Australian Twitter conference” but they are far from alone. The gurus of old media are desperately trying to reinvent themselves across the globe, and jumping on the social media bandwagon is an attempt to reinvent themselves as something in and interesting. Their only qualification is one of power, not expertise in their newly chosen speaking field.

Those that do, and those that don’t

The other proliferation in the “social media expert” space is those who can talk the talk, but have never walked the walked. Across the anglosphere there is a full time speaking circuit for those game and willing…and by extension that precludes much of the time those who are actually working in the space, as opposed to being available to talk about it week in, week out.

There are some greatly knowledgeable speakers in the space who haven’t really built anything of note, and I can think of a couple of great speakers in Australia and the United States who I’d happily recommend to others (and who I enjoy listening to myself.) But for every one who is truly proficient, there are those who’s influence arch extends only as far as their ability to bullshit their way through a talk to a crowd of people who are 10x more clueless then they are.

The problem here is that in many cases the implied trust is flawed: the audience expects to hear true experts, but that trust only extends as far as the audience’s knowledge level; once you get more knowledgeable audiences, those not really qualified to talk will be caught out. As a fundamental, that has to undermine trust, and once that stretches out across many, the whole sector suffers a trust crisis that even those qualified may be caught up by.

Conclusion

In noting the forthcoming crisis in trust, I profess to have no solution to it. The market has demand, and ultimately supply comes forward to fill that demand. Those that do by nature have little time to talk about what they are doing, and those that don’t have all the time in the world. For the short term, the market remains dumb to the fundamentals, and those not worthy of the title can and will make hay while the sun shines. Beyond that, who knows?

The market is not infinite, and yet the interest in the space has strong growth ahead of it. Eventually though the trust crisis will come, and the growth curve will head south; the market will naturally clean itself up, and maybe, just maybe the cream will be left standing at the end.

Is Social Media ruining the good old heated debate

Steven Hodson — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 21:03:02 +0000

I was reading a post by Ryan Tate over at Valleywag this morning which lead in to posts by Edward Boches and Bob Knorpp where the common thread between them all being that we are all becoming a bunch of agreeable wishy washy Charlie Brown types.

Now to clarify the parameters here; we are not talking about the perpetual idiots who do nothing more than try to destroy people verbally. We are not talking about the area of blogging that deals with hot button subjects like politics or other editorial slash news types of blogs.

What we are talking about is the Social Media arena where services like Twitter and Facebook are the face of social media networks. We are talking about those bloggers who deal with the whole social media ecosphere. We are talking about the marketers, PR people and other promoters of the whole idea of Social Media.

Of the three posts I think that Bob Knorpp did an excellent job of breaking down the reasons why services like Twitter, Facebook and social media related blogs are geared more to the old clap on the back “great post” type of response. It all boils down to the very way that they are structured, after all we are encouraged to follow “friends” not “people you disagree with”. At the heart of social media the idea is that we should all be striving to “get along” rather than to intelligently challenge ideas and concepts being proposed.

Bob puts it this way

While debate does happen among friends, by their very design the social networks are predisposed toward forming circles of like-minded people. Same with personal blogs. It’s unlikely you’re going to waste time reading the opinions of an individual you don’t agree with. So finding spirited disagreement in such circles is simply not the norm. Which raises the question of whether such environments are healthy if not matched to at least some mainstream engagement.

Even looking through the comments to Edward’s post it is easy to see that there is is some confusion when it comes to how people perceive what is being discussed. The one’s that disagreed with Edward more often than not seemed to be missing the thrust of his point. Where Edward was trying to make the point in relation to social media the commenter’s where defending their points of view by using examples that have nothing to do with social media.

As commenter Ben Kunz, who called Edward’s points “absolutely wrong” said

But the broader the audience, the sharper the response. Adweek columns draw a bit of hostility. When I’ve written pointed opinions for BusinessWeek to a very diverse readership, damn, all hell breaks loose. I thought the Widget Association Whatever was going to lynch me when I called animated boxes on web pages a passing fad.

Excuse me but none of those examples have anything to do with social media or the other examples that Edward was using.

Some of the underlying themes as to why we see this type of “can’t we just all get along” mentality appear to be along the following lines

Time: in order to be able to craft a well reasoned and thought out objection to some-one’s ideas or thoughts takes time and people don’t want to spend the time needed to respond. As well I would add it takes a willingness to defend one’s own points of view when it comes to the subject being discussed.
Attention Span: with all the information constantly coming our way becoming involved with long drawn out discussions that require a larger portion of our attention than pithy one-line responses before skipping on to the next tidbit of information isn’t something that a lot of people want to do.
Fear: as the emotions around discussions can increase the more likelihood that tempers will get heated and out will come the dreaded “troll” word. No-one wants to be labeled as such a person so we either hold back honest opinion or we don’t get involved at all.
Closed Circle: because we only have so much time in a day that we can spend being involved in online discussions or reading it is human nature to gravitate to those who match our own “world-view”. This type of closed circle of reading and involvement very rarely leads to heated discussions where we are pushed to defend points of view and at the same time learn from each other.

This idea that Social Media is all about “goodness and light” can be seen in the popularity and reader, follower/friends, numbers. Take a look on Twitter and the Social Media leader board there and you will see that the “always positive” contingent has follower numbers that are through the roof, whereas those that like to push the limits, those that question the ‘status quo’ have a lot less followers e.g.: @1938media. When it comes to blogs it is people like Chris Brogan, Louis Gray and others who find their readership grow by leaps and bounds. Those on the other hand who constantly question the “social media party line” often find themselves relegated to the blogging hinterland.

In the Social Media realm there seems to be this need to put on a face of everything is positive and those nasty little negative people are only an aberration. The primary reason for this of course is because Social Media is the current golden child of the Internet and there are a lot of people investing their futures in it which means having to paint a pretty picture in order to make it palatable for companies because we all know this is where the money is when it comes to making a living.

The problem is that all this warm and fuzzy can make things very boring and eventually drain the life out of Social Media. As Ryan said in his post

It’s so hard to start a good fight on Twitter. Praise someone effusively, it gets "re-tweeted" endlessly, while nice juicy feuds get smothered in the crib. Every Twitter user is president of his own fraternity. How stale!

Stale indeed.

Is McDonald’s playing the race card for profit with site for black people?

Steven Hodson — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 23:41:47 +0000

I gotta say right off the bat here that this has to be they fucking dumbest idea I have heard of yet. It is one thing for an entertainment network like Black Entertainment Television to gear their site content towards black people but the epitome of lily white corporate culture McDonald’s having a specific site aimed that the African-American segment of society is just plain stupid.

I mean, really, what were they thinking that when someone said hey I have a great idea … let’s show how in tune we are with cultural diversity and launch a black only website everyone looked around and said Wow! what a great idea – go for it. Seriously folks please explain to me how this is anywhere near being a good idea.

And what is with the name of this?

Who really thought that 365Black.com was a good idea?

Seriously – who?

I’m with Zee from TheNextWeb.com blog when he says

Pardon my french, but lets not bullshit around, this is of course merely a way to target racial minorities. Companies do it the world over. But couldn’t the website have just been a diversity website saying they support all different kinds of cultures, races, charities and organizations?

Dumb McDonald’s.

Just dumb.

Here’s McDonald’s explanation of what the site is all about

WHAT IS 365BLACK?

At McDonald’s^®, we believe that African-American culture and achievement should be celebrated 365 days a year — not just during Black History Month. That’s the idea behind 365Black.com. It’s a place where you can learn more about education, employment, career advancement and entrepreneurship opportunities, and meet real people whose lives have been touched by McDonald’s. Plus, you can also have a chance to win exciting once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. So make sure you visit often — you just might get inspired.

And everyone gave Motrin all that flack over attempting to engage women in social media – makes me wonder where the outrage is over this. Oh wait, that’s right … the majority of bloggers and social media mavens are white.

Sorry but this is just all shades of wrong and McDonald’s need to be told so.

Watch out for what you leave lying around the web

Steven Hodson — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 08:38:07 +0000

Ah the freedom of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, those places you can let your hair down and let loose with all the vagaries of your life. It’s so much fun to be able to post those pictures of your wild weekend that you wouldn’t even want to show your mother. Not to mention the fact that you can let loose a verbal tirade against all who piss you off.

It doesn’t matter really does it; after all it’s not like anyone but your friends who are going to see or read all those tasty little tidbits of your fascinating live. Well if you want a job in the information technology field or land a plum gig with some professional and business service company you might want to think twice about being so free with your life’s finer details.

According to a CareerBuilder survey forty-five percent of employers are using social media networking sites to research job applicants; with another 11 percent planning to start incorporating in their hiring practices. The survey provided some of the key reasons that thirty-five percent of employers would hold against you in your seeking of that dream job.

Candidate posted provocative or inappropriate photographs or information – 53 percent

Candidate posted content about them drinking or using drugs – 44 percent

Candidate bad-mouthed their previous employer, co-workers or clients – 35 percent

Candidate showed poor communication skills – 29 percent

Candidate made discriminatory comments – 26 percent

Candidate lied about qualifications – 24 percent

Candidate shared confidential information from previous employer – 20 percent

Source: MarketWatch :: Forty-five Percent of Employers Use Social Networking Sites to Research Job Candidates, CareerBuilder Survey Finds

Now about those pics of your last trip to Las Vegas – maybe they should have stayed there instead of your Facebook page.

hat tip to StarterTech

Amid their decline newspapers still trying to figure out social media

Steven Hodson — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 19:20:00 +0000

I really don’t envy journalists in today’s tumultuous world of changing media boundaries. One minute they are expected to behave as journalists have have for decades and the next they are have to navigate the new world of Twitter and Facebook – often without any “established” guidelines.

This has resulted in many news organizations to finally face facts – social media isn’t going anywhere so we had better figure out how to finally use in a way that is on one hand ready for the future but still tries to maintain journalistic ethics. Sure it is one thing to be willing to jump in with both feet and harness the power of social media and all it can add to journalism, the trick is how to do it without impugning the integrity of the organization, the reporters, photographers and editors.

To do this news organizations like the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Associated Press, Roanoke Times along with many others have been trying to hammer out a code of ethics guidelines that they can live with when it comes to dealing with social media.

Mary Hartney, director of audience engagement at the Baltimore Sun, says reporters, editors, managers and others will help shape the new guidelines. "The technology is changing, so I hope the ethics policy is a living document," says Hartney, who estimates about half the Sun’s newsroom actively uses social networks. "All of this stuff is changing very rapidly. So, anything you write down in an ethics policy or as a best practice is liable to change next week."

On social networks, you should identify yourself as a journalist, tell recipients if you’re using social networks in a professional capacity and remain mindful that people will regard you as a representative of your newsroom, says Kelly McBride, ethics group leader at the Poynter Institute.

"For journalists, transparency is one of the most important values," she says. "That doesn’t mean you don’t act as an individual, but there should be a caution gate if there’s anything that might embarrass your newsroom."

Source: American Journalism Review :: The Limits of Control

Ustream.tv Hits One Million Followers on Twitter

Paul Short — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 01:40:18 +0000

Online video and lifestreaming service Ustream.tv just hit the 1,000,000 follower mark on their Twitter.com/ustream account.

Now, normally we wouldn’t give a twitter account that hits 1,000,000 followers a second look (except maybe the Ashton Kutcher vs. CNN Twitter race to 1,000,000), but this time it’s different. Ustream.tv is one of only a handful of brands that has reached this milestone and it’s a great example of how they have leveraged social media and how social media leverages them to grow their company.

Shari Foldes, a member of the marketing team at Ustream, says:

“…Ustream is the largest live streaming site on Twitter by far, one of the only internet companies to break 1 million, and Ustream generates significant traffic from Twitter–more than any other source (including Google). Ustream utilizes Twitter to generate interest for immediate, breaking streams. For example, during the Michael Jackson memorial service in July, which broke Ustream traffic records, the link to the Ustream channel that was tweeted was clicked more than 80,000 times. Our 1+ million followers allows for the virality of mainstream live events, including Michael Jackson’s memorial service, the Jonas Brothers, Lil Wayne, Snoop Dogg, Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, and other events including CBS car chases, puppies and more.”

With the popularity of video sites on the internet and how a live streaming service compliments the immediacy of social media and Twitter in particular, it’s no surprise Ustream is flourishing on Twitter. As well as how Ustream uses twitter to promote mainstream celebrities and events, the celebs themselves are using it to promote themselves. If Miley Cyrus turns on her webcam and fires up the Ustream broadcaster, she can send a tweet directly from there to her 1.66 million followers and instantly have 10’s of 1000’s of people click to watch her and interact with her over at Ustream, generating a ton of traffic for the site.

Many companies fail miserably at social media, but they could be learning a lot by watching what Ustream is doing. They’re one of the only companies out there that has effectively closed the loop of social media, by truly connecting users across multiple platforms and multiple forms of online media.

Digsby steps into the real-time web

Steven Hodson — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 04:17:53 +0000

Digsby, a multiprotocol IM client as well as a social media client announced this evening a new version of their client that adds some new features to their already impressive list of supported protocols and networks.

Among the new services being added is access to your MySpace Activity Stream, status updates and t he ability to browse photos. They have also partnered with OneRiot to enable real-time search of the web from your desktop.

Additionally Digsby now has Global Status, with built-in spell checking, that lets you select which of the supported social networks and IM accounts you want your status updates to be broadcasted to. With this release the Digsby crew has also released their own URL shortener for users of Digsby.

On the cosmetic front Digsby is sporting a custom new look for Digsby users who are running Windows 7.

You can grab your copy of the new 3.5 release by heading over to the Digsby site and hitting the download button.

Not enough Twitter followers? Pay uSocial to find more

Steven Hodson — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 17:03:56 +0000

Want to be on Twitter but don’t have the time or social media skills to find followers on your own? If that is the case then a new service from Australian social media marketing company uSocial might just be up your alley. For a fee the company will search through Twitter and suggest to people who match your needs that they follow you.

Currently uSocial says they have a 150 customers who have signed up and paid anywhere from the starting fee of $87.00 for a block of a 1,000 Twitter users up to an undisclosed amount for a block of 100,000 people.

Leon Hill, chief executive of uSocial, said the company finds potential followers by searching Twitter and working out what individual users are interested in. It also profiles where people are so it can more closely match users with those they might want to follow.

USocial then sends messages to potential followers telling them about the new Twitter user they might want to follow.

"It’s up to the user to follow them or not," said Mr Hill. He added that uSocial continues to look for followers until the specified number had signed up.

Source: BBC :: Twitter followers ‘can be bought’

I’m sorry, but this is just a tad too scummy for me. If you are that inept at being able to find people on Twitter who might want to follow you then it’s time to pack it in. I don’t care if you are a company or an individual – using a service like uSocial only show me that you don’t understand social media in the least and will get you blocked.