October 27th, 2009 Jeff
I was talking to Stephanie one day and she was telling me a story about her boss. He was returning from a trip to California when there was a bit of commotion near the security check point. A man was being followed by a small group, which appeared to be his entourage, and a gang of paparazzi. They asked if they could skip ahead of him in line and he obliged. It wasn’t until later that he found out it was Jon of the infamous “Jon and Kate Plus 8″ TLC series. While ultimately Jon’s scenario is a little different, this story got me thinking of the problems celebrities frequently run into and how one could take back their life using social media.
Exclusivity is probably the biggest driving force behind America’s obsession with celebrities. Americans (I’m generalizing) crave the scoop on their celebrity crushes. Where do they go? Who do they see? What are they doing when not on camera? Americans crave this, because it’s not information that’s generally available to them. Like any other resource in the world, scarcity creates value and that value is what produces things like US Weekly, National Enquirer and the ever annoying paparazzi.
But all the information we crave, is the same information that people liter twitter with. (OH I rhymed!) Imagine if you could connect with a celebrity, even if it was only one way. I’m not a celeb whore, but I have to admit that I get a kick out of knowing that Jay Cutler is in the film room watching some Cincinnati footage. (It didn’t help Jay) It gives me an odd sense of connection to Cutler. If I ran into him in the supermarket, I wouldn’t go all fanboy over him. He’s just Jay, a dude on Twitter who happens to have a really awesome job. Bad example? Let’s use our favorite (*gag*) twitter celeb aplusk or known to the rest of the world as Ashton Kutcher.
Ashton Kutcher has become somewhat of a Twitter maven these past few years. He and his seemingly ageless wife Demi Moore share quite a bit of themselves on twitter. Sometimes you’ll see a tweet about events they’re attending, what they’re doing for the day, even the occasional photo. By putting the information out to the masses, not only are they reducing the scarcity of these tidbits of information (therefore reducing the value) but they’re also capable of controlling what gets put out to the public. Nobody will pay $4.00 for a magazine with photos of Demi Moore grocery shopping when she’s putting other photos of herself in everyday life on the web, accessible to all for free.
By communicating with your fans/audience, you reduce the level of exclusivity. Exclusivity is what drives the majority of fandom. Sure you’ll still have your occasional nut job who wants to smell your socks but that’s showbiz. Celebrities need to begin controlling the information that gets out there and the best way to do that is to put the information out yourself. Twitter is a great way to do that and is easily accessible to your audience. No need to manage your friends or accept requests or setting up silly automated bots to handle it. It’s easy, it’s simple and it gives you the power to interact with your audience and adds some control to the information and images that are getting out there anyways. More celebrities need to realize that Twitter’s usage can go beyond branding. As crazy as it sounds, the tool many of them see as an invasion of privacy can lead to more privacy.
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May 15th, 2009 Jeff
As the World Wide Web begins to expand our uses for it continue to expand, particularly in the realm of social networking. Our idea of a “friend” is also slowly being altered thanks to tools and applications that allow us to maintain “friendships” with minimal effort. I put friendships in quotes because of the rapid ease in which we begin to assign a once coveted title. The rules for friendships are beginning to change. But with that change in rules we start to tier our friendships. This isn’t anything particularly new, just expanded. (Everyone had a BEST friend) But with the onslaught of information we’re sharing it’s becoming increasingly difficult to keep it all together.
For me, Twitter served as a means to keep in touch with a lot of people I didn’t know and even to make some new friends. Facebook was intended to keep in touch with my real world friends, mainly because it was the tool I figured most of them would be using. But now that these worlds are starting to mix it’s becoming increasingly more difficult to keep up with the folks that are part of my real world life. Not to say that my digital friends are lesser (here comes that hierarchy again), but the expectations of a friend are substantially different in the digital versus analog world. It’s easy to tell when those digital relationships take on higher meaning, because you begin to convert them (or add them) to your analog world.
So I’ve been trying to figure out a way to stay in touch with as many of my analog friends as possible, using tools that are helpful to me. As much as I like Twitter, the signal-to-noise ratio is becoming less and less acceptable. I’m not sure how others do it, but I know that I don’t have time to stay engaged with Twitter in a way that’s both beneficial to me and my followers AND doesn’t feel like work. So far it seems like Friend Feed and Facebook are the two best options for me.
Friend Feed looks particularly attractive because it’s an aggregator of many sites and it has the added bonus of not requiring a user to actual be a part of Friend Feed in order for you to aggregate their data. (Check out the Imaginary Friends section of FF) It also has a pretty easy way for me to approve of other users content via the like or dislike option. A lot of Twitter clients also support Friend Feed, so there are more options out there than I would have originally guessed. The problem I have with Friend Feed in its current role in my line up is that I have no real reason to go to it. I don’t post any information there, it’s just an aggregator for me. But if I’m not there to post data, I’m not there to browse data. It’s a vicious circle. If I can commit to making my updates on Friend Feed and choose which data services cross post then that could be one problem solved. Friend Feed also has pretty good support for Lists. Lists allow me to categorize different types of friends so that it’s easier to keep track of them. It’s very much like group services in Twitter that you see in clients like TweetDeck, Nambu or the new Twitteriffic 2.0 software. The major difference is that the list functionality is built into the application, making it widely available on all the different client types. If I’m in a rush and only have a few minutes on my mobile device, I may only check in on my analog friends to see what’s going on.
Then there’s Facebook. The mac daddy of them all. Facebook met most of my needs except two main things. The first is the lack of a variety of clients. You’re pretty much using the website or the iPhone application. It be nice to have a tool that would allow me to do small quick things like looking at News Feeds and posting status updates. I know the Facebook iPhone app does that now, but the more clients, the more innovation and the more options. Facebook doesn’t look like it has any real grouping options, but it does let me hide news feed updates, which is helpful. Nothing is worse than missing a piece of valuable information in your news feed because some dumb ass from high school thought it would be cool to post all her photos from her drinking weekend. The other option is to simply not follow people I don’t have a serious vested interest in. Sure you’re excited to catch up when your first crush ever friends you on Facebook. But once you find out where they’re at in life now, the novelty kind of wears off, but you’re still stuck with their updates.
How do you manage all your social networks and still maintain valuable relationships?
p.s. And after writing this I spoke with a friend who told me about “Lists” in Facebook too. So now Facebook might very well be a more useful tool to me.
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January 22nd, 2009 Jeff
The butter knife, a part of every person’s kitchen, is a tool. The most common usage for this tool is to spread butter, jams, jellies, peanut butter and a million other toppings on something. Well at least that’s how I use a butter knife. But how many of you have used this same utensil as a flat head screw driver in a pinch? Or used it to jimmy a door open when you lock your keys inside? Or decided to play a joke on your roomie by dropping it in the toilet and then placing it next to his morning toast? The butter knife is the same tool, but the user has modified its use based on the users circumstances.
Social media and this explosion of openness and entirely TMI on the web isn’t indicative of the tool, but how people have decided to use the tool. Lets take Twitter for example. I have a group of friends in New York who use Twitter amongst their private circle to share information, plan events, etc. They’re not really interested in finding people they don’t know and getting random updates about lives more mundane than their own. They took the tool of Twitter and used it in a way that fits their needs and circumstances.
Sticking with that example lets say a member of this group of friends is a private guy and protects his updates. He doesn’t want the world to know that he’s just been assaulted by mutant tigers on his way to Jiffy Lube, but he wants a quick easy way to share that information with the friends he’s trusted. He’s extended that trust by allowing them to follow him. Is that breaking the rules? Should we get to decide how someone shares information about them? Is this in the Twitter Terms of Service? (I haven’t read it)
Why do people chastise others for how they use Twitter? That’s the beauty of it, if you don’t like how someone is using the tool then why are you following them? Lets say someone you follow regurgitates Tupac lyrics and passes them off as famous Bob Barker quotes. That could get annoying really quickly. So why not unfollow them? Sounds like a simple solution to me. I try to make the rules for social networking the same rules I would use in real life. If you don’t like the conversation, move to another table or simply don’t partake in the conversation
If I’m at a bar with 3 of my friends and we’re cursing and talking about bare breasted Olympic pole vaulters, would you seriously come in and tell us how to conduct our conversation? How we should be communicating with one another? No, you’d either join in and accept how we communicate or you’d walk away and move to another table.
Some people aren’t promoting a blog or a podcast or a web project. Not everyone is looking to have their voice heard by as many people as possible. Some people just want to stay connected with friends and family. Some just want to keep a running log of their moods throughout the day. I think they should be allowed to do that if that’s what they choose.
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December 2nd, 2008 Jeff
Most of the people who are reading this post are like me, social network junkies. We enjoy sharing our experiences online whether it be interesting links, our taste in music or our observations on life. These social tools have taken away from our more traditional sense of personal blogging. I no longer write posts to keep my friends in New York informed on what I’m doing. There’s really no need now that I’ve got 300 different methods for updating them in smaller albeit more frequent messages. Now enter the 800lb gorillas of social networking, Facebook.
Facebook is becoming a mainstream tool for us to keep in touch with our people scattered across the globe. Many of our Facebook friends have no idea what a Twitter is or think Pandora is just a box with a lot of trouble inside. They look to see what’s happening with you in the only place they know of, Facebook. We have to keep in mind though that our not-so-net savy friends may not be interested in everything that’s going on with you. Some are annoyed by the fact that you’re at Kingston Mines is invading their status page. There is however that select group of people that find it useful to be able to go to one place and get updated on the happenings of one’s life. But again our not-so-net savy friends aren’t aware of services such as Friend Feed. Enter the Facebook integration.
To make it easier for people to find my updates I decided to integrate a lot of my other services into Facebook. So now all my updates are collected via Friend Feed and then Friend Feed is part of my news feed updates on Facebook. It’s easy for me and easy for everyone that’s a friend to follow. But what about those people who are “friends” but don’t really care to know every detail? Those old high school buddies that you don’t really talk to, but you couldn’t help but send a request to them just to see what they’re up to. They are now inundated everytime you listen to music, rent a netflix movie or favorite a YouTube video. Do we care about their precious wall space or do we just allow them to de-friend us? What IS the social etiquette for this? Is there such an etiquette?
I’d love to hear your feedback. Comment or sound-off via Twitter with an @bobbidigital. Help me to become a better Internet friend.
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