Jerry doesn’t get it.

Social Media Today principal Jerry Bowles  last week wrote a post called Twitter is for birdbrains I read and said to myself, “he’s kidding right?” I guess he wasn’t. The problem with Jerry’s post was that he runs a site that has the tag line- The Web’s best thinkers on social media and web 2.0. This post would not comprise some of the “best” thinking associated with the site. If anything it comes off as the man who walks around with a shot gun and keeps yelling at the kids to get off of his property. Or the guy in the old Scooby -Doo cartoons, who says, “if it wern’t for you meddling kids…” Or the person who can’t stand that new group the Beatles, and doesn’t understand what all the hoopla is..

how-scooby-doo-works-11

Go read the post if you haven’t and tell me what you think.

My friend Paul Chaney, whose opinion I respect very much sums it up this way.

This really gets my dander up. Not because you feel so negatively about Twitter (though I think you’re perspective is ill-informed), but because you’re principal of a company whose sites have, according to Robin, several Twitter accounts and runs a Twitterfeed in the sidebar! Jerry, at best that’s hypocrisy and ludicrous at worst. Most certainly incongruous.

It’s as narrow minded, off base, and completely wrong a post that I’ve seen on Social Media Today since I’ve been a contributor. If it was to get a rise and nothing more, then how about letting us in on the joke Jerry. If it wasn’t and you truly believe what you have written- then maybe you might want to backtrack and claim that you were doing it just to get attention to the site.

My  main complaint? You barely use or have used Twitter, so I’m not sure how you can definitively make the statements or claims that you have. They hold no weight. If it was someone with 500 followers and was following 500 and had 500 tweets, well then maybe I might seriously consider what you said, or at least respect your opinion- but I can’t even do that.  I’m trying to understand, really I am. That’s it, I’m out.

3 thoughts on “Jerry doesn’t get it.

  1. I was appauled by Jerry’s comments really. I mean, I respect the guy. He’s doing some good work and has found a niche with these sponsored sites. (We should all be so lucky as to have companies like SAP to sponsor us, then find suckers like you and me to provide the content for free. I mean, what could be better than that!)

    But his is as ill-informed and naive an opinion as I’ve seen and he should know better.

  2. Thanks for the link. I missed it. But I just commented over there; check it out.

    Like Paul, I respect Jerry. And I know him personally; we had lunch a while back. I’m curious to hear his response. And yours.

    Oh, and Marc, any chance you could install the “Subscribe to Comments” WP plugin so I can get email responses to future comments? Here’s a link: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/subscribe-to-comments/

    It should work on wordpress.com, not sure.

  3. great post Marc. I agree.
    I can hear Scooby saying, “Rut Ro” on behalf of Jerry.

    I don’t know Jerry, never even heard of him until now, but couldn’t help but think this is a ploy. One of the best ways to generate buzz is to create & stir up controversy. It’s just strange to do it in such a way that it attacks members of one’s own tribe (assuming that Social Media is a tribe and Twitter is a sub-tribe).

    Maybe he’ll speak up and say that posting that was a dare from someone.

    Otherwise, he’s free to keep his head snugly up his ass.

    -D

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