Monthly Archives: October 2007

Do social networks make us less social?

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So I use Facebook and Linkedin, and to a lesser degree even MySpace. I’ve even started to Twitter. I’ve connected with former Co-workers and even some classmates from high school and college. But now what? None of my former classmates from high school live in my town and so there won’t be any connection there. My college classmates have even splintered more. So now what? I made the effort to connect, so I guess now it’s time to network with strangers. How do I feel about this? My first inclination is, what do I hope to get out of it? I might as well cold call people and introduce myself and ask them if they want to be my friend. Well maybe that’s where the beauty of social networking kicks in. I can hide behind the screen and type away without really uttering a word.  Pretty social huh?

I’m thinking that there are more people like me out there. We have been drawn to the light of the flame, or by others who have touted it as the NBG(next big thing) and once we got there, we’re like, “Ok, now what”? I don’t want to work “That” hard to connect with people that a) I barely remember b) I barely knew and c) I hardly liked. So what is there to do with my newfound social network?

 I think what would be more fun is to have a site that does then and now pics. Now that would be social. We could sit around and do what everyone does at reunions. Whisper behind their backs about how fat and bald they all are, how messed up they are, how much they changed, etc etc. That’s social isn’t it? It’s also a form of networking.

Truthfully, I’m still trying to figure out what to do next. I suppose that I need to maybe elaborate more on my profiles and make them even more accessible than they already are. Which in reality, I’m not wild about, because I really don’t want my data passed around like a church collection plate. But I think I’m a little too far down that road. I suppose it does have networking possibilities, but that will have to be something that I continue to evaluate.  To me, networking is of 2 forms: Can you help me get a job or Can I get some business out of you?

Now, I’m not saying that the social networks don’t work on certain levels, it’s just that it might work better on large scale enterprise lavels rather than former classmates and workmates trying to connect after x amount of years apart. In fact for high school and college and large organizations, social networks totally make sense. The question is do the social networks create online social clicks similar to what you might have offline? The data is still out but I would be curious to hear from someone who is knee deep in one to give us their impressions and feedback as to how it has affected them negatively or in a positive way. There has to be some twisted slant already brewing from the advent of these. We don’t need to address the stalkers, the lurkers, and the usual freaks that go to these. Don’t forget the internet is a reflection of our society. To that end, to bad we can’t be made aware of these people online. Picture some type of nondescript, dirty white conversion van as an icon or avatar. That would be sufficient warning.

The bottom line is social networks are here to stay. They just need to be more socially accepting to the average lay person who might not swim in the same circles as everyone else. But still would like to be accepted,  would like to enjoy and utilize these networks to some degree. Sort of mirrors life doesn’t it?

DRM, The music business has to change, again.

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I have a friend who has a site called Howzitsound. He wants to change the way we listen to music. But he wants to be unlike all of the others… Where have we heard that before? If you must know, I’m still in favor of changing the way we listen to, access, and share music, as it stands today. But by no means do I think the current model works. The system is still flawed. In fact there is a great blog post about it right here by Ian Rogers, who seems to understand that, we as listeners and purveyors of music are tired of being played<—pun intended.

What my friend wants to do is open up Howzitsound to the best and the brightest, to build the model that works best for them. He wants Howzitsound to contribute something positive to the music industry. Something sustainable. His problem is, he just doesn’t know what it is. What that ideal model is. I got news for him, neither does anyone else. Think things are ok? tell that to the woman who just lost a court case against the RIAA to the tune of<—pun intended, $200,000! Thats right she was made the poster child for anyone who has downloaded music illegally.  Oh and she has 2 children too. I’m thinking the 10-20-life law might apply here, what do you think? What message did they send by doing that? Was it necessary?

So back to what would a viable web 2.0 music model look like? What would it need to have in regards to having a large scale buy in<—-pun intended, from all of the labels as well as the current keepers of the keys to the kingdom?

What do users want? What I do know is that what they want, is to play their music on any device, access the music from any site, and have it be compatible with anything; Car, house, device, you name it. They don’t want to have to jump through hoops time and time again, and they want access to the largest catalogue possible. I hear you led Zep and Radiohead fans!

 Now I’m getting excited, look how it’s now we and not they… 🙂 We want widgets, we want contextual apps, so that we can listen to similar music, we want to be able to share our playlists and we want it to be affordable. The only problem with that limited wish list is, that like Ian Rogers said, we’ll have to wait, roughly 8 years for even the smallest of miracles in regards to headway.

Tell me what we need to do!!! Lets help my friend at Howzitsound. Someone turn him on to someone else…and lets change the music business again, lets let the users decide for a change!

It’s not about Google, It’s Yahoo… Sorry MySpace..

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Raise your hand if you use or access all three of the aformentioned.  Ok, I know we all use Google for something, and we all probably have a Yahoo mail account for some reason, and well MySpace… It’s something all together different, But I bet you have vistied a couple of MySpace pages. Hell, you might even have a MySpace page! If so…My bad..

 You see the first 2 sites have a specific purpose whereas MySpace is more “me-time” oriented.  The simple fact that we talk about MySpace in the same breath as a Yahoo mail or Google, is in and of itself an amazing phenomenon. Given it’s realtively short history.

As a social network app., MySpace doesn’t appeal to me that much. The technology that surrounds it does, but thats because I’m sorta “tech-y-geeky”. But we need to look at the demographic for MySpace to fully understand the impact of it. It’s geared towards 18-24 year olds, but it extends in either direction as well. i.e. 50 year olds use it and so do 15 year olds. But what it tells you, is that people are starved for self expression. Starved to meet someone or with the hopes that someone wants to meet them. They should call MySpace a Viral network thats connected by social norms. MyViralSpace.

I heard a comment last night on 60 minutes, that the internet is a  direct reflection of society. I always knew it, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized it is so true.  We want to meet other people, we want to be with those people and we want to be rich and we are motivated by things that will pleasure us and we dont want to work for our money, we want to slack off and and we want to have fun. All of the motivators of our off line world transposed online. As if our lives our now 2-D. the online life and the offline. See–>Second Life.

So Yahoo seems to cover it best. Just compare the Google interface with Yahoo. Yahoo is a portal, Google is not. Google is search, Yahoo is more like the place you stop to get your coffee, grab the paper, talk to someone real quick, read your mail, pay a bill, check a score and find out who is sleeping with who before you head to work or start work. Google is for checking for George Clooney’s house pics in Italy, seeing if your old college roomate is in jail, and researching for jobs in a bigger city than the one your currently in. Google is a tool. Yahoo is a resource and MySpace is a nightclub. MySpace is where people go to cruise for others and share their sense of wannabe coolness.

Can all three exist? You betcha, but where they all will stumble is when they think they can  do something that the other is doing, and do it better. Google as a portal? Maybe. Google as a social network, no chance in hell. Yahoo as search, holding their own, Yahoo Mash? The jury is still out. MySpace as a search tool, uhhhhh no. MySpace as a portal, well it sorta is, but not in the literal sense.

Ultimately, as they say content is king and thus Yahoo has prevailed up to this point because the content changes daily, hourly etc. MySpace may have some value in it’s ability to mine the data, but as a destination location, not gonna happen. And Google, well Google is as Google was. The bottom line, they all serve an audience that wont’ be going away anytime soon. At least for the next 12 months

Rockies to share postseason payout with Coolbaugh’s widow

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I know that  this blog is mostly about Tech issues, but since it’s Friday and this story speaks to the fact that we all think that professional athletes are overpaid, spoiled, and insincere, read the following story…it’s a good read and you might think twice when you assume that all athletes are as I mentioned above. Many thanks to one of my best friends Tim Kaye for turning me on to it. It made my day.

Besides their surprising 14-1 finish to the season, the Colorado Rockies are giving baseball fans another reason to cheer for them this postseason.

The widow of Rockies minor league coach Mike Coolbaugh, who died after getting hit by a line drive this season, will be granted a full share of the team’s playoff winnings after a team vote.

Rockies manager Clint Hurdle said the gesture spoke volumes about the quality of the character in their locker room.

“I was passed on the information that they voted Amanda Coolbaugh a share, a full share, which I found speaks to their awareness, speaks to their passion, speaks to every good thing about them,” Hurdle said.

Coolbaugh, who is 32 and pregnant, won’t attend Saturday’s Game 3 of the NLDS between the Phillies and Rockies at Coors Field. But her two sons, Joseph, 5, and Jacob, 3, will be in attendance and will throw out the first pitch.

“When I heard about what the players did, I almost cried,” Rockies general manager Dan O’Dowd said. “This was the players’ idea. I think it’s remarkable.”

Mike Coolbaugh was a first base coach for the Tulsa Drillers. The former major leaguer was killed July 22.

Shaken by Coolbaugh’s death, Rockies first base coach Glenallen Hill now wears a helmet.

Shortstop Troy Tulowitzki said awarding the family a share was the right thing to do.

“We’re obviously happy with the decision,” Tulowitzki said on Thursday. “I hope they are, too, and I’m sure they will be.”

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

Party on Everest, everyone invited, minimum requirement: the ability to climb 18,000 feet.

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According to Oregon Scientific, you’re all invited up to base camp on Mt. Everest for Everest Rocks.  It’s a fourteen-day trek up Mount Everest by 40 of the world’s top musicians and mountaineers, Everest Rocks will culminate with the first-ever rock concert to take place at Mount Everest’s Base Camp.

Footage of the concert, the trek and events leading up to it will be filmed exclusively using Oregon Scientific’s ATC2K Waterproof Action Cam. Forty ATC2K cameras have been
donated to the Love Hope Strength Foundation, making it possible to capture
footage of this ground-breaking event.

The climb is designed to bring awareness to, and raise money for the Love Hope Strength Foundation (LHSF), The Love Hope Strength Foundation (LHSF) is an international not-for-profit organization with chapters in The United States, United Kingdom and Australia, founded by leukemia survivors Mike Peters, of the Welsh Rock Band the Alarm and James Chippendale, President of CSI entertainment. The goal of LHSF is to give people with cancer the same opportunities Peters and Chippendale received including access to information, quality cancer treatment, medications and support.

On a side note. check out the waterproof action cam. It’s only  a $130.

If Google went away, would you care?

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How would Google impact your life if by happenstance, they just,”went away”? As a casual user of the web, I would think that you wouldn’t miss a beat, you’d just migrate over to Yahoo or MSN or one of the hundreds or thousands of other second tier search engines out there. Would your results suck? Would they be tainted by gross inacurracies? I’m sorry to say, and it probably pains Google to hear this (not really) but the answer is more than likely, no and no.

You see, the other search engines are not that bad, in fact Ask.com for instance, is really really good. But when you are trying to compete against this Goliath of a company, you’re little pebbles will have no noticeable effect or impact, no matter how cool and powerful.

I imagine that if Google went away, their 10,674 employees would have to find new jobs doing something that we have no clue about. Since they are so secretive anyways… Then there are the tens of thousands of people that make money on Adsense. What would they do? Arghhhh!!!! Get real jobs?  I suppose they might go back to that fine affiliate marketing model that was and is still so annoying. Here’s a thought. Maybe the CTR on banners would go north of 1% if Google went away?

SEO and SEM professionals would naturally just shift their attention in the forums and their blogs to bitching about Yahoo and MSN’s “Algo” and why it’s so unfair, and why they never get back to you, and why they never give you a straight answer, and why you need to do it “this way”.  They also would be lost without having a Google toolbar that gave them their PR’s; Oh and Matt Cutts, the Google Guru, would probably be an authority on something, but it just won’t be in search.

Would there be less web sites if Google wasn’t around? What would be the ideal business model for making money on the web? Yahoo would own PPC outright at this point so what would they do differently if Google wasn’t around?

Would MSN be even more formidable if Google wasn’t around? Since Google has come on the scene, casual water cooler talk has shifted from, “I wonder what Microsoft will release next”? to “Did you see where Google’s stock is at”?

Are we better off socially because Google is so entrenched into our daily lives? Do they make us better at what we do? Do they solve nagging problems that previously existed before they came on the scene? Do they have our best interests at heart? Does Google care about you and I?

What do you think life would be like without Google? Does Google impact your life?

Dumb People and Technology

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According to Wikipedia:

Dumb may refer to:

  • Stupidity, the state of
  • Dumbing down, a term referring to over-simplification

I recently wrote about the fact that sometimes technology and the use thereof, may be too complicated for some “slower” people to grasp, therefore what they might use their computer for, might not neccessarily be what others use it for. Is that ok?

In creating web apps and websites, we always try to dumb down what we are creating, in the hopes that its simplicity will push it over the top in terms of the broadest possible audience grasping what we are trying to convey. In lieu of words sometimes we create icons. Yet other large manufacturers choose to assume that people will “get it” and if they have problems just call the help desk. Can you say focus group? Or lack thereof?

Maybe Dumb people shouldn’t operate computers? Maybe we underestimate the dumb person; Or perhaps they use it to go to YouTube? Do dumb people use email? Has anyone or any company actually looked at that sector of the public to see, just what they use the computer for? Is it a group that we should market to? Are we missing out on this demographic? Or do we just assume that they will get it? Isn’t it the goal of all technology innovations that they are accessible to all? If so, doesn’t that mean regardless of your mental capacity, that that person will be able to grasp it? That you, the slow one, will get it?

Is technology biased towards people who are educated? If it is, do they leave the dumb people in their wake? What are dumb people supposed to do? Rely on smarter people? Or the Geek Squad? Do dumb people want a  crack at technology and what it has to offer?  Does technology provide a fair shake to people who want to learn but just are really really challenged?

A dumb person might have the grandest of intentions when buying a computer, but what are they to do when they have to install software, get an internet connection, download updates, install security software, burn a disc, download some music from itunes, buy some porn, etc etc etc…?

You see the world is moving more and more towards a paperless virtual high speed electronic environment. But it moves at a speed that not a lot of people are comfortable with. And you know what? Technology could not care less! Social networking sites are great but I’m willing to bet the affluency of the users is solid middle class and up. Educationally, we provide our 1st graders with a solid foundation for technology, but we’ve forgotten about the boomers and some gen X’ers even, and those who may have slipped through the cracks and those that it just passed right over. For whatever reason, those people are missing out on what technology can do for them. But now that I think about it, maybe they don’t care. Maybe to them, playing FreeCell, Bejeweled and watching Videos on YouTube, is just fine…

Google Envy

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 GE…  Google Envy. We all have it. Even if you don’t admit it because you are above that, deep down you know you have it.

In contemporary times, GE is the term used metaphorically to refer to the idea that we all wish  we worked for Google, had Google stock. or were bought by Google. In more subtler terms it refers to the anxieties we as marketers and site owners and SEO folks feel about our impact in Google’s search engine.

Think about our world and how Google has managed to work its  way into our lexicon.   Lik Pez, Google is a proper noun.  Pez is a candy and Google is…. Google. But where they differ is that I can’t “Pez you” but I can “Google you”.  You know this conversation happens a half million times a day… “Hey I Googled Thomas/Cynthia last night, and you won’t believe what I found!”

So alas, Pez is not a verb and Google has become one. How many companies can become a verb? Not Microsoft, Nike, Coke, McDonalds, Toyota, NBC, Rolling Stone, The Rolling Stones, Yahoo, The NFL, The NBA, Nintendo, Sony, The World Cup, The Olympics, Not even…. Microsoft-cue the reveal music.

I wonder if Microsoft has Google envy? I used to have Microsoft envy. In fact right after the bubble burst in my dot com world, I still had Microsoft envy. I wanted Microsoft to buy my company. Didn’t they buy anything that was cool and had a pulse back then? They were the big dog and I think we all worked for small start-ups with the hope that Microsoft would notice us and decide to buy us. It’s at this juncture that we should bring in Andy Rooney from 60 Minutes.

Andy: “Do you ever wonder if Microsoft has GE? or Google Envy? I bet they do. I know I do. I think we all have Google Envy. Even my dog has Google Envy.

As a world that now uses technology in every day life in every way possible, we now measure things by our ability to search for them on Google. It’s almost as if it’s the great judge of legitimacy. However, from the perspective of the marketer and the SEO’r, it’s also the gold standard by which one is measured. If you rank #1 in Google, then you must be good. Because Google said so. 

So it just goes without saying that Yahoo and MSN, the other 2 search engine’s, should have major GE. They fight over the scraps of what is left in Google’s vapor trail. And like it.  I envision Shaq going up against Herbie the wannabe dentist destined for Misfit Island, and The Keebler Elf. All fighting over the gold and girl, and it really not being much of a fight. It’s just not fair. But I like Shaq, he’s a likeable guy. I even think Herbie and the Keebler Elf are cool, but in the end, you know they wish they could trade places with the big man. Even if they don’t admit it.

Is technology complicating things? Or is it making us more dependent?

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With social networking sites taking off and the evolution of the cell phone as more than just a communication device grows exponentially, questions are raised as to whether we as marketers and designers and developers are “Getting it”. Do we really know what the user wants? Are we asking them? Or are we shoving it down their throats?

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