Why let it trend?

The internet can be a racist, sexist, bigoted place as we all know, but it can also be a positive place where people stick up for and defend the rights of others.  Both sides of this can be seen on Twitter, where from time to time surprisingly offensive trending topics can pop up.

I remember a few weeks ago I was looking through my Twitter stream, and was caught with shock when I noticed that #blamethemuslims was a TT; I decided to check out why this was trending and what people were saying about it.  Most of the tweets were in fact not racist at all, but instead in solidarity with the Muslim people.  While there were a few offensive ones, but most read things like “#blamethemuslims for math and writing” or “don’t #blamethemuslims their faith is hijacked by those who don’t understand”.  I find this to be a very interesting concept, the people who are stating positive sentiments are the very ones keeping a very offensive hashtag trending.  This seems a bit backwards to say the least, inspiring what one is arguing against.

To me this shows how desperate for attention people are.  If they really cared, the best thing to do would be to completely ignore the TT or at least try to start a trend with something more positive, like #dontblamethemuslims. 

I just wanted to vent my frustrations; I’ll be back later with a more substantive post.

SM and TV

I recently had the opportunity to meet with a few people at Hill Holliday regarding a position.  Without going into too much detail, it seemed like it went well.  Time will tell if they think the same.  However, while I was there they threw some interesting questions my way, and gave me many ideas for future blog posts.  Thanks!

SM and TV have a strange relationship.  Most commercials now-a-days point you to their Facebook page or Twitter account, but recently there has been a trend, trying to get people to connect instantaneously using their smart phones.  Here is an example from an Old Navy commercial that uses Shazam:

So there are three things that I find wrong with this commercial initially.  One being Shazam in general.  In today's world who still listens to the old style radio?  iPods, Droids, Pandora, either you chose what songs you want to listen to, or the station digitally tells you the name of the song.  On my car radio there is a digital displays the shows the name of the song and who it's by, so there is no need to even use Shazam.

Moving past how unnecessary the Shazam app is, we also have the problem of the length of the commercial.  It's about thirty seconds.  By the time they tell you to turn to the Shazam app the commercial is about half finished.  I decided to see how long before they told me to use Shazam and how long it would take to look up the song.  The ad was just over twenty seconds in before I was able to take out my phone, find my Shazam app (hidden in some folder) and read the data.  Keep in mind I knew I was going to pull out my phone, if I was not ready it would have taken longer.

My last point relates to the issue of time sensitivity as well.  The commercial never gives me a reason to use my phone, why rush to pull it out if I have no incentive?  Do I get a discount? Is there some cool bonus content I'm going to get?  Who knows.  If I were sitting at home watching this commercial I would never have been tempted to even look at my phone (at least as far as this commercial is concerned).  Since the ad is only thirty seconds there needs to be some sense of urgency so people can act in time.

Until the issue of "why" is answered this style of commercial seems a bit pointless.  Perhaps I'm quick to judge, it could just be this commercial that is poorly made.  If there were a static Shazam logo in the bottom corner with a little text, something like "Shazam this for a 10% discount" it would be infinitely more effective.  I'll keep my eye out for commercials like this in the future and keep pointing out how effective they are.

Facebook's changes

I have been spending a great deal of time talking about Google+.  While Google+ is exciting and new, there are already existing networks out there that deserve some attention.  So without further ado, I present a post about something other than Google+.  (And if you're keeping count I mention Google+ four times in this paragraph).

Facebook has recently come out with new changes to their news feed feature that are noteworthy.  Search Engine Land does a great job simplifying the changes; I will do a basic rehash, but you should check out their post for more information (here).

Facebook now groups posts by relevance, grouping posts that are connected to the same topic or share the same link together in the news feed.  The rumor around the blogosphere is that they are doing this to appease businesses (it's the corporations brah!)  It makes sense that businesses would want the change so their brands could jump to the top of a person's news feed every time a comment, or a "like" were made to it.  The real question is how will this anger the everyday Facebook user.

Alot.  The Twitterverse hates the changes, as do I.

I understand that Facebook is trying to increase its revenue, but at what cost?  By now Facebook is definitely feeling the heat from Google + (five).  Can they bare to make anymore missteps?

A few posts ago I wrote about Google+ (six) angering businesses and how they can't afford to do so.  Facebook is in the opposite position, businesses have no choice but to use its service.  Facebook is so established that all it has to do is retain its users and the money will continue to flow.  That being said, Facebook has almost 700 million more users than Google + (seven), so it can afford to spare a few.

Whatever the changes, Facebook should be careful, Google is growing up fast.

Staying on top of it

Social media is an ever changing landscape and in order to stay on top of it you have to employ a variety of methods.

I recently read an article on Mashable (here) that detailed how the pros stay on top of it and felt inspired to throw in my two cents.

1.       Twitter. I find twitter is the best way to stay on top of new news in the digital world.  You can follow large news organizations and professional bloggers for the inside scoop.  Not only that, if you follow the right people you can get some gems that you may have otherwise missed.  Both the primary advantage and disadvantage is that twitter is continually updating; if you’re actively reading it’s a great place to find information, but if you check every few hours or so, great content can become buried.

2.       Google Reader, by far the best RSS reader out there (as the Mashable article states).  I use Google Reader for my favorite blogs, the ones which I do not want to miss a single post.  It’s great because, like twitter, it’s multi-platform.  The only downside (and this goes for Twitter too) is reading on the iPhone or other small screens can kill your eyes.

3.       Podcasts.  I love podcasts because of the ability to listen on the go.  If I’m on a train or bus where I can’t look at my phone because I’m too busy trying to keep my balance, I can still stay current.  The problem that I have with podcasts is trying to download while out-and-about, due to slow data speeds (though that could just be my poor cellular service).

4.       The internet.  I feel like this explains itself.  You go on and read what you want.

5.       Friends.  Ask them.  They may have some information you find relevant, if not just ignore it.

Gamification

Last night after browsing Twitter for a number of hours I decided to move on to something more educational, reading the news.  News.google.com is my most frequented news source; it has a nice array of articles from various papers and websites, and delivers a pleasant variety of opinions.  I expected it to go as most normal nights looking at the news goes: browse articles for about ten minutes then move on to more interesting and less depressing blogs.  This time however, something caught my eye. 

In the middle of the page, hovering over my favorite section, I saw a block of text with what appeared to be a badge.  “No” I thought, “this is the news” I thought, “Google would never do this”.  Oh, was I wrong.  What I saw blocking the technology section was an ad for Google badges or whatever they are calling it.  Before I closed my browser with pure disgust I read the brief description.  It read something like, “You can earn private badges for reading news stories”.  I’m sure there was more to it but I don’t really care.

Social gaming can be fun; I’m fine with Foursquare making checking into places a game, going to physical places and leaving your mark lends itself to social gaming.  There are other apps out there that let you essentially “check in” to television shows that you are watching, I don’t use them but I can understand how it could be fun.  How can checking into a news article have any utility?  I can’t begin to imagine a conversation with my friends where I would say something like “haha, I stole your mayorship of reading the New York Times”.  Does that even make sense?

Google, why would you take something as pure as the news and try to make it into a game?  If I am reading the news I am already doing so for my pleasure; adding bells, badges and whistles won’t change anything.   I’m fine with the constant gamification of everything, but it has to stop somewhere and that somewhere should have been before it got to the news.

Google +1 gets a -1

Why is Google messing with my search results?

I was doing a search the other day for something mundane, I think it was for movie times or fondue; whatever it was, it wasn't of importance.  The important thing is that when my search results came up there was a picture of my friend's face and a blurb that read something like "Bob likes this" or "Bob +1'ed this".  After processing this infomation for a moment I closed my laptop so fast I was scared that I may have broken it.  Is this what we have come to, incorporating social media into search?

I love my friend Bob and all (an no his name is not actually Bob), but I really do not want his opinion when it comes to anything.  He has horrible taste in movies, music, books and fondue.  We have different opinions on almost everything; just because we're friends does not mean that we must have similar interests in everything we do.  If I wanted an opinion I would have called, Facebooked or Tweeted Bob and asked him his advice, not have run a Google search.

Search should be just that, a search: aggregate the data of all Internet users and deliver me the most relevant and useful links!  Social media and search occupy two separate spheres of the Internet: one for communicating with friends, strangers and former high school friends who you have no interest in anymore, and the other for, well... search.

I fear Google becoming an "interests" page where the top search results are only those that one's friends have +1'ed.  I may be jumping the gun here, but Google is a trendsetter and if this is embraced, I fear for where search is headed.

Klout: for better or worse

Imagine yourself in junior high.  Got the braces?  Don't forget the ugly clothing that you thought was cool. Now pretend that your least favorite teacher asked forced you to run for class president and everyday posted the results so the entire school could see it.  That's what Klout is.

A proper description of Klout would be to call it an online social influence tracker.  The service connects to various networks (with your permission) and through its algorithm calculates how influential you are.  Currently the networks are Linked In, Twitter and Facebook, though Klout claims that they are adding more in the future.

The idea of measuring social influence was bound to happen at some point but is it a path we want to go down?  Currently users choose to sign up for Klout and connect their accounts, however once in they can then see the Klout score of all the people they follow and all of their Facebook friends.  It is not hard to imagine a world where Klout score turns into a high school popularity contest where people compete for a higher number.

This is a problem.

Klout score can only be raised by interacting with one's networks.  It would be easy to game the algorithm by spamming your friends and your family with pointless content and becoming what amounts to a comment or reply troll (depending on the social media platform).  My anger lies in the fact that I feel like Klout could really decay the quality of current social networks.  Who wants to wake up with 50 posts from friends on their Facebook wall asking them to comment on whatever nonsense they type?  Not I.

If used for good Klout can be a positive thing, a way for people to measure and reflect upon their own self-worth in the online world.  For now it's too early to tell what will come of Klout, but if it continues to gain popularity we all will be forced to be subjected to its judgmental algorithms.

(Disclaimer): I am a Klout user with a score of 40.

For more information visit Klout.

The "War"

While I do not want to talk about Google+, as long as the chamber is echoing I might as well make sure my voice is one of them.

Let's talk about this "war" that is raging with Google+.  If you are not blind you may have noticed that I placed the word war in apostrophes; I did this because I do not believe there is really a war.

For the last few weeks, since Google+ came out, the blogosphere has been really up-playing the supposed fight between Google and its arch rival (insert name here).  Sometimes the rival is Facebook, which makes sense given the profile creation and maintenance aspect of Google's service, along with similar sharing features.  However, sometimes the Google rival is Twitter, which makes less sense.  I haven't really seen Google+ used for broadcasting or micro-blogging in my experience with it, but hell, why not?

The point is that nobody really knows who Google+'s rival is, it is still way too early to tell its purpose.

Now let's focus on the numbers.  Google+ is at what? About 20 million users.  Let's compare this to Facebook's 750 million users.  This is not a David and Goliath tale, this is Godzilla vs a labradoodle.  Google may be fast growing, but Facebook has a massive advantage that is not going away any time soon.  Not to mention that while people may be adopting Google+, I doubt they will be leaving their already established networks on Facebook.

Until you can use all the features of Google+ through text, it most likely won't really be taking a swing at Twitter either.  With the recent deletion of Google+ business pages, Google seems to be sending the message that it does not want companies broadcasting on their platform, a key feature of Twitter.

I know the people want to see blood, but it's far too early to start throwing around words such as "war" and "fight".  Can we all agree to let Google+ develop into something before we start over-analyzing  and cross-comparing it?  Everyone seems to want to see it succeed, so let's not doom it before it starts.

Enough Google+ already! (Not really)

So, if you're like me you have been reading tech blogs for awhile you have come to the conclusion that nothing else in the tech world exists aside from Google+.

Almost everyday, on almost all of my favorite blogs there is a new post about Google+.  Whether it be Google+ for business, Google deleting Plus accounts or how to market yourself using Google+, it's all the same.

While I acknowledge that since the service is new and still adding thousands people everyday, it makes for an interesting topic, but I do wish the tech-head love affair would end soon.

I can't tell if bloggers have just run out of ideas or if we're all just so excited to finally have a Facebook alternative that it's all we can talk about.

Either way, it's time to move on...

Oh and look out for my next post about Sparks on Google+.  (Irony intended)

Google+ and Business

Tonight while having my post-work beer I decided to pick up my aging mac and read some of my favorite blogs.  While reading, one post caught my eye: Search Engine Land's post about Google and Business accounts (article here).

If you read Mashable or follow any sort of tech news you would have come across an issue Google+ has been having with business accounts.  For some reason Google has decided that it doesn't want businesses creating Plus accounts.  Over time they have been deleting business's pages and according to Search Engine Land's post they have recently started deleting high profile business pages.  Mashable, one of the most popular pages on Google+ was deleted, but then reinstated under the guise of being on a "trial" basis.

Lame.

I love Mashable just as much of the next guy but c'mon Google you can't haphazardly enforce your policy!  It seems to be that Google doesn't want to alienate most of its early adopters, the tech heads that read Mashable. 

In the future Google is going to need businesses and organizations to make their social experiment successful.  Google is taking a huge hit developing and maintaining Google+, and they are going to need to monetize at some point in time; pissing the businesses off now may backfire in the future.  The point could be made that businesses will go to where ever the people are... but is that really true?  

Look at the top social networks, a key feature is that they allow people direct interaction with organizations and companies.  Imagine MTV hosting the VMAs without twitter; imagine watching any commercial on television without hearing "find us on Facebook".  Linked In is completely based around connecting people through companies.

Google should realize that an integral part of social networks is a kind of "you scratch my back, I scratch yours" relationship with businesses.

I know want to be friends with Mashable, my favorite beer brand and my favorite sneaker.  If myself and others like me are not allowed to communicate with them, not only will Google lose on the business end, but also on the people end.  

The Twitter Problem

The problem is an issue of who, what and where.

A fair amount of people have twitter accounts, some people have multiple ones, I am one of those people.  Though recently I have grown tired of using multiple accounts and remembering what each one is for.  I have one that I used to write my thesis, one personal account, and one slightly more professional account.  Remembering what to post where, and who can see what has grown old and confusing.

I have opted to start using only my semi-professional one (Twitter.com/JWeekz) but this creates problems.  Having linked it to all my various social media platforms, both professional and personal, not only can my friends see it, but also perspective employers, my employees, my coworkers and my college buddies.  There always is the potential to be watched, so I have to be careful about what I say.  No matter how badly I want to tweet about that TT, I have to stop myself before I say something I may regret later.

Not only do I have to worry about what I say, but also who I follow.  While I don't think following my favorite musicians and movie stars is an issue, I want to be careful about what information I'm reveling about myself.  Political affiliations, obscure interests, there are things that I don't want some people to know, but that I want to keep tabs on.  Thus the Twitter problem.  Do I follow them and not care who notices, or do I hide my interest from the prying eyes of whoever cares to check in on me?

Who sees what I tweet, what I actually tweet and where I tweet it: The Twitter problem.

South Park got marketing right

Last night while enjoying a refreshing post-work beer I decided to go on my computer and watch a little South Park.  I'm a huge fan of the show and have seen almost every episode, so I hit the random button, kicked my shoes off and started to enjoy.

 

The episode was entitled Cartmanland, for those of you who don't know who Cartman is I suggest you step into twenty first century.  Cartman, an unpleasant racist, sexist and generally every "ist" in the book inherits a large sum of money and decides he wants to open his own theme park.  He does so, kicks everyone out and for a while enjoys the park by himself.  After a brief period of time he learns that there are various costs that are associated with owning a theme park and decides to let a small number of people in to offset said costs.  Over time the cost of ownership of this park grow and as does his need to make revenue, so he must let more people in.  The populace, not being allowed to enter the park, line up outside daily in a desire to be apart of that small crowd that is let in.  Eventually Cartman, to his dissatisfaction, has an incredibly profitable theme park.

 

The whole point of that story is point out what seems to be happening with a number of businesses.  Take Google Plus for example, they started off with a limited number of invites and soon the web was abuzz with Google Plus.  Some even say that it could be the fastest growing social network to date.

 

Spotify is doing this right now with their American beta.  Recruiting Klout users to send out exclusive invites.

 

Is this really how it works?  Has South Park correctly parodied human behavior?

 

Apparently all it takes is making something of unknown value seem exclusive and people will be all over it like hot cakes (or Google Plus for an example relevant in our days).

 

Oh ya... and to be fair I was an early adopter and continuing advocate of Google Plus.

 

I guess we're all sheep.

 

Bahhh.

Spotify

I was reading one of my favorite blogs, Spinsucks.com,  and today they did a post about the new music service, Spotify.  I thought, "you know I have time, and I'm in on the Spotify American Beta, so why not me too".  Here is the link to their post: Spinsucks: Spotify.

Being a member of klout you get free early access to Spotify.  I've been playing with it and enjoying it so far.  It is kind of like GrooveShark, streaming music for free as long as you're connected to the Internet.  But aside from being 100% legal, I can't really discern a different between Spotify and GrooveShark aside from Spotify being a downloadable app and GrooveShark being a webapp (definitions used loosely).  Sure the legality issue may make a difference to the RIAA and musicians, but to me and most other Internet users we do not really care as long as we get our music.

Spotify has a share feature that allows you to post your favorite songs to Facebook or Twitter.  It also allows your Facebook or Spotify friends to view playlist or favorite artists (assuming you grant your friends permission to do so).  It looks pretty clean and the buffer speed is fast to say the least, of course living in a major city with already fast Internet speeds buffering times have never been an issue.

Currently I am a Rhapsody subscriber (ya I'm one of those suckers).  I pay $10 a month to take my music on the go.  When you spend half as much time commuting as I do, it makes sense to have lots of music and not buy each song individually.  That being said, I just cancelled my Rhapsody account in favor of a switch to Spotify once my subscription runs out.

Spotify promises lightening fast sync times, and it's simplistic UI make it easy to manage music, create, and edit playlists.  Not to mention if the excitement around Spotify holds it could become an invaluable tool for sharing music.

I'm making the switch.  I'll say more once I upgrade at the beginning of next month.

Google+

So I have embraced Google+, and so far so good.  The only problem I can find is in the circles feature.

I like the ability to control who sees what but setting up circles takes a bit of time and can be tricky.  When I first started using Google+ it was easy.  I only had about 5 or 10 other friends who had it, so sorting them into circles was easy: Close friends, HR friends (high response) and Everyone.  Now that the stragglers are finally managing to get a Google+ account it is becoming more difficult.  Everyday I add about 2 or more people to various circles on Plus, and keeping track of where they are placed and correctly categorizing them has become much harder.  Not to mention I like creating entertaining categories like: I bet these people don't know I hate them, and UberNerds!

I have seen the number of circles that I have balloon from the original 3 to about 10 and growing.  I would say for every ten friends I add, I have to create a new circle or two, to properly categorize our relationship.  This is a far amount of work; moving people around, placing people in multiple circles and deleting them from their previous circles takes some serious time.

I know Facebook uses an algorithm that displays friends in your feed based on an affinity score, I wish Google would create something similar for circles.  It would simple enough to add a circle suggestion tab and have it be based off of some Google+ affinity score.

I know Google+ is only a baby but this small change would make using it a lot easier.

...And has the Internet reached a consensus yet?  Is it Google+ or Google Plus?  Decide soon interwebs.

Not worth it

I was talking to one of my friends about this blog, and how I write for non-existent ears.  He suggested that I get at least some readers or "what else is the point?"

First, the point is that it's out there.  It's online.  The world can access it, and it's contributing to some greater collection of knowledge or noise, depending on what you want to call it.

Also there is the problem of getting people to read what you have to say.  The best way to get traffic is to mercilessly pimp yourself out.  Whether it be to your friends or to the Twitter masses, what ever you do, it's still pimping yourself.  I could annoy all of my friend by continually linking my blog posts to my Facebook, Linked in or Google+ pages, but then anything decent I want to say gets drowned out by the noise I've created by linking my blog posts.

Another option is to use Twitter.  I could finish all my tweets with tiny url that links back here, but then I become all that I hate: a bot, a twitter troll, an e-pimp, whatever you want to call it.

As I sit here in front of my computer, typing away, I can sit happily knowing that though nobody is listening at least I stuck to my guns and didn't bot my friends or the world.

Alienated or Connected

Have you ever wondered what would happen if the internet went out?

This weekend I took a trip to the Vineyard with my longtime girlfriend and something similar happened.  We were on the remote part of the island, so I couldn't get data, and the wifi was so weak I would pretty much have to be sitting on top of it to get any sort of connection.  It was horrible.

The trip itself was awesome, beaches, shopping... the works; never a dull moment.  Still something felt like it was missing without any sort of E-connection to the outside world.  I would carry my iPhone with me everywhere I went with vain hopes of getting some sort of a bar or two so I could access the Internet.  Occasionally I would get a bar, raising my hopes.  Maybe I could get an e-mail, check facebook for a bit or even send a picture via flickr.  But no.

Even on the beach, while watching the clouds drift my mind would be drifting with them, wondering what was going on in the world of Twitter.  Did one of my tweets get retweeted?  Could I be a Twitter superstar and not even know it?  Not to mention I lost a few foursquare mayorships.

It's sad I know, however it raises an interesting discussion about the nature of being plugged in.

Am I alienated or connected?

Here is a picture of a cat with a watermellon... on a beach:

Social media why?

Why do people use social media websites?  Twitter, Facebook, Linked in, MySpace, Google+, Foursquare, the list goes on.

I am not only guilty using all of the sites above, but do so regularly.  WHY!? I have no idea.  Is is some latent desire to have more communication?  Do I want to be noticed and become famous somehow?  Do I think that people out there actually care what I have do say?

The answers are: no, no and no.  So then why?

Aside from Twitter I generally know all of the people that I communicate with on the other social platforms, so I can scratch out famous.  My friends already don't care what I have to say anyhow, and I have no desire to be famous.

The only other possible explanation I can think of is content.  To share videos and websites, but even that still it makes no sense, if that was the case why not just use one social media website; surely facebook would suffice.

Maybe social media is a niche hobby.  Some people collect stamps, some people are into cars or beer, others are into social media.  Discovering it, using it, finding the latest and greatest.

I don't know I can't really think of any other reasons, but why not?

Here is a picture of a cat:

Coffee

I've gotten so bored that I've resorted to playing a game with myself... A G-rated game if that's where your mind was going.

The game is simple drink as much coffee as possible until you can't control yourself from shaking.

The game is great because you always win, either your tweaked on caffeine all day or, well tweaked on coffee all day.

Ok, so it's a stupid game, but I have nothing better to do.

The question on everyone's mind

Is Kesha really as easy as she comes across?

You know your day is interesting

You know your day is interesting and event filled when your making a blog post that you know nobody will read.

I think I have checked my email a minimum of 50 times since work started (9 o'clock). It's not that I'm not working, it's just that there is nothing to do. GIVE ME WORK! At least then I would have something to do besides complain. I mean I still would complain, but at least I wouldn't write about it.

And yeah, getting a more interesting or fitting job would be the answer... If it were that easy. I look like a genius on paper, and I have sick-diclous social skills to boot but noooo of course no job wants to hire.

Until that day I'm just gonna wine (drink it) and moan, and try to be a little funnier next post.

Yea, first post

So I'm gonna blog now. Ya that's happening.

I feel like since I'm at work, a boring job that I feel way over-qualified for, why not do something in my spare time.  My goal in writing this is for the random person sitting at home clicking through blogs has one more mouse click to make and blog to jump through; I'm doing my service to my country.

It's actually kind of freeing writing this, he chances of anyone I know seeing it are low, hell the chances of anyone seeing it are low, so I feel as though I can get away with writing what I want.

I'm sure I'll end up updating this like 20 times a day. So be prepared nonexistent people reading, alot more to come.