A View from the Isle

It’s not often that a link to a press release get circulated around Twitter, but this morning there was one going around, and it wasn’t because we thought it was great.

Internet marketer Matt Barak pushed out a press release via PRWeb about him scoring 99.9% on TwitterGrader. Only problem is that one’s TwitterGrader scores are, rather fluid and don’t really mean you’re in the “Twitter elite”, but Matt put up the press release regardless:

What’s better than soaring to the top of a popular social networking site? How about skyrocketing to the summit of two of them? That’s the envious position The Powerful Promoter, Matt Bacak, found himself in last month when he entered the Twitter elite. Proving just how powerful his Internet marketing promotional strategies are, Bacak not only became a top three Atlanta Twitterer, but he currently outranks 99.9% of all members of the site. Internet marketers who would like to follow The Powerful Promoter’s tweets and improve their own promotional efforts can do so online at http://twitter.com/mattbacak.

[From The Powerful Promoter Promotes Himself Straight to the Top of Twitter - Matt Bacak Achieves Another Social Networking Milestone]

So here is his Twitter grade: Matt Bacak and yes he is marked as in the “Twitter elite for Atlanta, GA“, see there are lots of folks there too, not to mention I also have a 99.9% grade and am in the Twitter elite for Vancouver, BC so what’s the deal here?

Did Matt blow it tooting his own horn or not?

Sorta.

The chatter and sentiment on Digg is less than charitable, but really we’re all edge cases in this regard. We understand that what you get from TwitterGrader is more like a fun little thing not to be taken seriously. We’re all thinking this guy is an idiot. None of us have heard of him (I’ve @ replied to him and haven’t gotten a ping back, so I guess he’s not monitoring-bad call there) and we shaking our heads.

However think about his potential clients, folks who aren’t into social media, etc, they’ll go, oooh aaaahhh. Not to mention we’re all talking about it, like they say there’s no such thing as bad PR.

I think this is another case of the divide between the savvy and the tactically smart (or lucky). We know that the release is BS. That one’s rise to the pantheon of twitter, if there is such a place, isn’t something that gets handed down from on high. The rest of the world doesn’t though. I’m simultaneously grateful, bewildered, and cognizant of the fact that I have about 2650 Twitter followers. I’m flattered that people follow me, I don’t think I say very many profound things, but I know that if I send something out it has a broad audience.

And I as much as I catch myself lacking humility about the number of followers I have, I figure I’m still a small fish. Lots of people have more followers. Lots of people with fewer followers have a lot more interesting things to say than I.

So Matt put out a press release that potential clients will eat up, he looks like an internet marketing god to them while the echo chamber laughs (and maybe out of a small about of jealousy). I’m wondering if Matt might just be laughing all the way to the bank.

Last night there was a Tazzu dinner in Yaletown where the big even of the night was going to be Tanya (Netchick) drawing the winner of her $500 cash prize for donating to her Team Diabetes run.

Tanya had the lovely Monica Hamburg do the draw (since she didn’t have any entries in, unlike John Chow with 52 and myself with 7) and she pulled Marketwire!

The funny thing is that everyone wanted to know who would be next and it Gus … who works at Marketwire and helped to get the sponsorship for Tanya!

Marketwire showed how cool they are by putting the money back in. It doesn’t end there because one of Tanya’s teammates Christine is about $1000 shy of her goal, so Tanya gave the money to her and is encouraging us to help her as well (yes, Tanya has indeed met her goal, hence the $500 give-away).

Nice. Great work everyone.

So Tanya are you going to live stream your run?

Read Tanya’s post: (Tanya aka NetChick) This Chick’s Life- » Marketwire wins… And so does Team Diabetes!

You can see my whole Flickr set from the evening below (I was borrowing a Nikon P6000 point-n-shoot from work last night):

Sure it’s been in the works for four months, but today it’s official, AbeBooks is now part of Amazon:

AbeBooks is an online marketplace for books, with over 110 million primarily used, rare and out-of-print books listed for sale by thousands of independent booksellers from around the world. A true Internet success story, AbeBooks.com has been selling books online since 1996, and is a private company based in Victoria, with affiliates in Germany and the United States. Internet Retailer magazine ranked AbeBooks at No. 73 among North American online retailers in June 2008.

[From Four months in the works - Amazon acquires AbeBooks - Techvibes Blog]

Yes, there is some sadness about a Victoria company being absorbed by a (huge) American one, but you know I’m also feeling pretty damn proud of knowing that another home-grown eBiz has found this kind of success.

Here’s to AbeBooks!

This weekend we’ve had an example of social media rising up to roast a company over the coals. I think this isn’t always the best example of the power of social media, the ad might not have been great, but whether it is out there or not doesn’t really affect the world at large.

Now a non-neutral net with ISPs throttling P2P or just blocking traffic is something that affects all of us. This weekend’s heated discussion couldn’t have been possible without the free and open net that allow us to not only discuss the topic in real time, but to also have allowed Twitter itself to be born.

Here in Canada we don’t have a particularly pro-Internet, or rather pro-free internet, administration. SaveOurNet has been working hard, and Steve has been emailing be frequently reminding me of the importance of the issue at hand. Today Parliament opens its new session, and I think it would be a good idea to contact our various members of Parliament and let them know how we feel.

The Conservative federal government is NOT inclined to support an open Internet. To keep a level playing field on the Internet we’ll need a robust citizens movement to put pressure on politicians and policy makers and shape policy that protects equal access. The social web community can provide the foundation for this burgeoning movement - perhaps even serve as a catalyst. Consider this a call to action.

[From Does Social Media Have an Immune System? | SaveOurNet.ca]

The Conservatives might have a pretty large minority government, and the Liberals aren’t in much of a place to influence much, but our voices together can raise the issue to the fore.

I’ll be writing an email today to my MP, how about you?

Jim Turner and I worked together at One By One Media and Bloggers For Hire when business blogging was a new and unproven way to reach customers. Yes, it was often a hard slog, but blogging was hot in the media and a lot of people were being told to “get a blog for us” so we did. Now times are a wee tougher and Jim is seeing the predictable backlash.

I can see a pattern to something that is beginning to make me think that the economy is hitting even the professional blogging industry. In some respects there has been an increase in companies seeking ways to help reduce their marketing, advertising and other online marketing budgets through the use of outsourcing bloggers. This helps them reduce the spending they have in those areas yet increase their productivity. This has kept my phone and email smoking of late from those companies in that camp. In other areas, like for instance in the larger companies with larger budgets, I’m seeing the opposite. It’s time to shed the ballast is their minds. What is considered ballast? Anything that is not nailed down. Employees and departments that were once hiring professional bloggers in the field are tightening their belts and putting their noses to the grindstone. It is time to protect them and their own. Department heads are having to do with 10 what they used to do with 15 people. What was once considered a luxury of having money to pay someone to blog, department heads are now having to do for themselves, or worse yet, not at all.

[From It’s Not You…It’s Me - The Great Business Blogging Breakup | Bloggers For Hire]

The question I have to ask businesses thinking about pulling back from social media, etc, when does it ever make good business sense to stop listening to your customers?

That’s what this is really all about. Sure starting a blog is about writing and Twitter is about … umm … stream of consciousness (or conversation on ADD, you choose), but what is really is opening the door to talk and listen to your customers.

Fine, this sounds like touchy-feely hooey, but the times when companies have listened to me I’ve appreciated it and they’ve gained my loyalty.

Seems to me, then, that when times are tough, when you need more customers, when don’t want to lose customers, that doing things to help that along should be considered a “good thing”.

Okay, maybe you don’t want someone to blog for you on your business blog on a regular basis, that’s okay, but keep the folks like Jim around to bounce ideas off of and help guide you in the conversation. You know what though, if you do have to tighten your belts and budgets, do more with less, doesn’t it make sense to give you and your employees a leg up on social media? How about you give your employes more time to do other things and let someone make sure your blog is updated, current, and relevant?

See now is the time when tapping into social media is a wise investment. Social media isn’t some new thing now, it is how people are talking, working, and sharing.

Are you still listening to your customers?

Over the weekend we got word that version 0.20 of TweetDeck was nearly done and being sent to early testers (Iain, pls can I be an early tester for the next round) and planned for updating today (ish). True to form TweetDeck told me that an update was ready for me and I quickly said “Yes! Upgrade me!”. Here are the release notes for this new version:

Version 0.20 beta - 17/11/2008 (more info)

* - Added patches 0.19.1, 2 & 3 fixes
* - Added API rate limit info added to top right
* - Added no notifications for your own tweets
* - Added pulling maximum number of tweets on each call
* - Added user added to friend list when followed
* - Added user removed from friend list when followed
* - Added user added to friend list when profile viewed and already followed (and not present in DB)
* - Added Persian character fix
* - Added “clear read tweets” button to column function
* - Added deduping methods for each column type
* - Added control logic on adding columns - can’t have multiples of same content
* - Added unread tweets counter to each column
* - Added “in reply to” link to appropriate tweets
* - Added mark as read in one column now marks same tweet as read across all columns
* - Added deleting your own tweet & deleting a DM now actually deletes from twitter
* - Added your sent tweet immediately added to All Tweets column - live updating
* - Added column specific filter bar for tweet text, username, source & timeframe, both include & exclude
* - Added http://idek.net/about.html url shortening service
* - Added clicking on notification window will close it immediately
* - Added favorites column
* - Added an “add to group” button implemented in certain tweets & profile panel
* - Updated advanced search.twitter.com support - except “near:”, error with API
* - Removed local search
* - Fixed user avatar not showing or updating
* - Fixed display problem with < symbol
* - Fixed bugs with enter key showing new line & sending tweet when tweet panel not in focus

[From TweetDeck]

I am really loving being able to add someone to a group with a couple clicks. That is so convenient. TweetDeck also seems peppier this morning as well. I did have a small hitch in my update, I had a group of tweets from the CBC, BreakingNewsOn, etc (News headlines) that disappeared. I certainly could have accidentally deleted it, but it doesn’t matter I’ve rebuilt the list now (and it was much faster too ).

With the update to AIR this morning as well, it is becoming apparent that TweetDeck is going to be central part of my infostreaming hub. It is almost my dashboard for all info as it is. I still have NetNewsWire for RSS and Mail for email, but that covers it. Amazing isn’t it, moving from so many apps to just a few? Yes, of course Firefox is open to read pages and I’m posting with Ecto now (for the time being, not too keen on it’s spell checker), but when I need info, I rely on TweetDeck and NetNewsWire. Some info comes in via email, but not a heck of a lot. That’s correspondence now.

Focused attention, pulling many streams into one. That’s how to win the day in the new infoeconomy.

Update: Twitip has a review of TweetDeck, but it looks like only 0.19.3b was reviewed.

There is more press on the Motrin ad this morning. Last night I wrote more about the peril of not being tuned into social media more than the ad itself (again, I thought it was patronising), Chip Griffin brings a more accepting take on the whole incident:

Unfortunately, Motrin ran into the Blogosphere Buzzsaw when a number of “Mommy Bloggers” and other social media leaders took exception to the video. Some objected to the spot’s suggestion that Moms might seem harried and even look a little crazy after treking around with their kids all day. Others claimed that devices like slings eliminate pain and alleged that Motrin was targeting Moms who used them.

And, of course, when nobody from Motrin stepped up within the first few hours to respond, the piling on spread beyond Moms to many others from their blog and Twitter pulpits. After all, the unwritten rules state that a company must respond when and how the Blogosphere wants at all times. Otherwise, they “don’t get it” or “don’t care.”

[From Forget Motrin, Take a Deep Breath - Media Bullseye]

Granted social media folks do tend to get all in a dither about a topic quickly and when we do the posts and tweets fly around like blazes. Yes, sometimes these are tempests in teapots, other times not. however that doesn’t mean the concerns aren’t valid nor that they shouldn’t be responded to.

Chip makes some good counter points to the criticism that’s flying around, but I have to take issue with this bit:

Not Everyone Monitors 24/7. As someone who owns a media intelligence company, I would love to see every company have someone dedicated around the clock, 365 days a year to monitoring everything remotely relevant in both traditional and online media. But that’s an absurd expectation — unless you are a blogger on the warpath. In the case of Motrin, we’re not talking about a crisis involving tainted pills or something life-threatening, or even a case of a serious ethical or moral transgression, but rather stylistic and tonal objections to an online ad campaign. If there’s no response on a Saturday afternoon, that’s not an indication that the company doesn’t get it or ignores social media. It’s possible that some of the bloggers and Twitterers may actually step away from their computers for a few hours every now and then.

Having launched lots of sites in the Web 1.0-2.0 worlds, some of which potential controversial (like an HIV site for a pharma that made the two main HIV drugs at the time), we were on call and actively watching for reaction (or hacking) for the first couple days or so. It didn’t matter if we launched on Friday or not, it was just prudent (this is also why I like to launch new sites on Tuesday or Wednesday, so I don’t lose a weekend if something blows up). So I don’t buy Chip’s point here. If I were Taxi NYC - McNeil wouldn’t have launched late in the week, especially not on a Friday, and would have had all hands on deck to monitor the conversation.

No, you don’t have to sit in front of your machine all the time. Bookmarking a twitter search, having Google alerts mailed to you, few RSS tricks and you can monitor and have a life in the critical first 48 hours.

Sure, maybe the video didn’t need to be pulled. Maybe it could have been done differently. Maybe they were all listening but chasing their tails trying to figure out what to do. The bottom line is that today there a bunch of people who have gotten their first social media black eye and now need to do some damage control and bridge building.

That’s life in the hyperconnected world of the world of social media.

It’s the weekend so a large company is going to get trashed on Twitter for a social media gaff. This week’s winner is Motrin.

Katja Presnal has a great summary (and the video that caused the uproar) on her blog and Mashable has a post by Sarah Evans giving some additional commentary on what went on but let me give you the short sentence version.

PR-advertising agency Taxi NYC made a site-promotion for Motrin targeted at mom’s who “wear” their babies (that is using a sling, snugglie, etc) that used a video clip that came off dismissive and patronizing at the same time. Twitter exploded with commentary last night, and it’s still going on today (check out this Twitter search for “motrinmoms”). Commentary is the polite way of saying “had their ass handed to them” because whoa I would not want to be the account manager for Motrin right now. Like Katja tweeted today:

“Motrin will take a lesser hit than their PR agency” by @skydiver
8 minutes ago from web

KatjaPresnal

[From Twitter / Katja Presnal: "Motrin will take a lesser ...]

Yes, McNeil hired Taxi NYC for the campaign, and they signed off on it (they had to and agency can’t blow their nose without three levels of regulatory approval when doing a pharma project), but I don’t place the place on the Motrin product managers. They don’t have time to figure all this stuff out, that’s what an agency is for. Yes, gut feel is important. Yes, I’ve seen projects get tanked by PMs because it was too close to the edge, but I think the blame rests firmly on Taxi for this one.

While this isn’t a social media campaign per se it became one as soon as it lit the Twitter-verse on fire. So where is Taxi in all this? There is a MotrinMoms Twitter account but as far as I can see they aren’t clued into the conversation about the campaign. There is no discussion with the thought leaders who are tweeting and writing about. The tweets are just, I don’t have a word for how bad, like fiddling while Rome burns.

There are so many great lessons here that I know I won’t catch them all, but here’s a good go at them:

• If you are the product manager at a company it’s time to have some basic education about social media
• When hiring an agency their social media savvy is a must check- must have.
• Agencies, you must be on point and monitoring the social media world from the moment a campaign goes live. You have to be read for anything
• If things are starting to go off the rails, reach out. Find the players and influencers and connect with them one-on-one. If they are big enough to have influence, they will be easy to find and contact.
• Agencies, if you don’t have social media specialists (or at least experts) on staff, time to hire some. Yesterday.

Dave Knox echoes these points in his post: “Congratulations Motrin. You just proved why every brand needs to understand Social Media ” and reminds me of Brian Solis’ post on crisis communications (which I can’t find at the moment). You can’t be blissfully ignorant of social media anymore. Brand managers, product mangers, agencies, you all need to step up and get a handle on the world of social media and how you work within it.

Go to a conference, check out a Third Tuesday, heck hire a social media consultant for a day or two for workshops (I’m available), because if you don’t you’re going to have a Monday like the folks at Taxi NYC and the Motrin brand team are going to have. Yeah they’re going to need some Motrin tomorrow.

Update: Just posted from Mathew Ingram and now Toby Bloomberg.

More updates: I missed in the first go round Laura (Pistachio) Fitton’s original post and GuruofNew

Feel free to leave more links in the comments.

Okay folks we really blew it this week. How many times have we been told not to give out our passwords? How many times have you refused to give a tech support person your password? Yeah lots, but this week I think we collectively blew it. Not just once, but twice!

First was SocialMinder then it was Twitterank. Both spread like wildfire working off what powers social media the most, us.

A friend passes something along or see a tweet with “My Twitterank is…” from a friend, well of course it should be safe, right?

Doh!

That is the simplest bit of social engineering and we fell for it.

As well, it should be a wake-up call for everyone to be a lot more careful about sharing your personal information. It should also be a reminder that changing your passwords on a regular basis, and not using the same password for every online service is a good digital habit.

More: Louis Gray has a post about Twitterank, and how he’s not too concerned about people hacking into his Twitter account.

[From Getting Sloppy With Data/Passwords | Mark Evans]

Yes, Twitter needs to make some changes so we have have interesting things like Twitterank safely, but wow we’ve got to think harder. I can’t count the number of times I’m asked for a password for one service by another to do something that I’d like.

Sure most of the time this is cool, but it doesn’t take much to make it very uncool. Uncool that could become really, really bad.

Fine lesson learned, but really there are legitimate reasons for this kind of thing and I don’t know an easy way for us to vett the good from the bad.

AIR apps, Facebook apps, all these things…I hope someone smarter than I has an idea on this because besides OAuth and OpenID I don’t know a solution.

You?

Update: I was going to include this link to Alexander van Elsas’ post on the 5 dangers of social media .

If you’ve been following my Tweets of late, you’d know that my Windows laptop has been frustrating the snot out of me lately. Essentially my laptop I bought for just writing and surfing couldn’t handle Lightroom very well (even with the extra RAM).

I don’t know why it didn’t even take me long to decide that a MacBookPro would be the right choice, I didn’t even check out PCs. Really.

So after a 5 year hiatus I can say this again:

All the brew-ha-ha about the death of blogging last week didn’t really surprise me much (See Mark Evans, Mathew Ingram, Wired and Tish Grier). I had a post percolating in my head about the whole issue, but it wasn’t until Rebecca’s post today that it all clicked together for me:

I think blogging is changing; it’s evolving into something much bigger, allowing for more applications and tools to emerge in the online realm. It’s changing the conversation and allowing for more of a two-way street; you and your audience, wired and mobile, on and offline. Source: Blogging is Dead » Vancouver Blog Miss 604 by Rebecca Bollwitt

This is what I’ve been saying-have said-will continue to say (and you thought verb conjugation would never be helpful!) for years now. Blogging is changing and evolving. Blogging is writing. It’s a tool. At either Gnomedex or Affiliate Summit or BlogWorldExpo over the summer someone said “Saying I blog is like saying I paper.” it’s just one technology that lets us share and exchange information quickly.

Rebecca’s right, live tweeting is overtaking live blogging. Why? I think because there is more immediacy to a Twitter stream of coverage, certainly more brevity, and you can reach a broader audience with less effort. I have something like 2200 followers on Twitter and I know not all of them read my blog, but on Twitter they can get the info easily.

FriendFeed is becoming a hub for information, one that I haven’t been using as much lately because TweetDeck doesn’t have FriendFeed integration, rather than Techmeme or similar aggregators.

All of these tools are based on what we’ve learned and developed through blogging. RSS, remote posting, following people, friends, connections. It’s an evolution, a process, and frankly it’s damn exciting.

I’m still writing here, and will continue to do so until I run out of things to say. Is this a blog or my personal magazine of Tris?

In the end, does it really matter?

Michael Tippett and NowPublic published the fourth in their series of “MostPublic” lists today, and, umm, wow, I’m #12:

Vancouver, BC – September 26, 2008—NowPublic in partnership with the Vancouver Sun, today announced its fourth MostPublic Index, identifying the Web’s 20 most visible individuals in Vancouver.  The MostPublic Index is a detailed barometer of whose voices are most heard in the digital landscape as new channels—Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and the like—transform how media is created and spread.  Previously, NowPublic identified and announced the MostPublic influencers in New York, Silicon Valley and Los Angeles. Source: MostPublic Index: Vancouver

Several things hit me about this list. First, that I know and have met in real life almost all the people on this list. Next that I also know that the majority of the list has been at this game for at least 3-4 years. That’s longevity baby.

Finally I realized that there is a damn good chance that most of the people on the list will be at BarCamp2008 and we can get a group picture of all of us.

Congrats to everyone on the list. Now let’s rock it.

Quick update: Here is the Vancouver Sun article and Rebecca’s post (I really liked Rebecca’s post).

I love technology. Always have. Even as a kid I loved to figure out the gadget du jour. For the past four and a half years I’ve been immersed in what we’ve been calling “Web 2.0” and for the past couple of months I’ve been on hiatus. During this time I noticed that keeping an eye on Twitter, Techmeme and a couple other places, I could stay up to date. I might go a several days without checked my once much vaunted feeds and when I did check feeds, I marked everything older than 48 hours read (thank you FeedDemon!). Again, I didn’t feel like I was missing much.

Walking around BlogWorldExpo this weekend and Gnomedex last month, I didn’t see anything revolutionary or groundbreaking. Nothing that made me step back and go, “whoa”. Yes, don’t get me wrong, there have been some amazing recent innovations for microblogging, video, commenting, lifestreaming, but these are making good ideas better.

I’m thinking, though, that there is, thus far, a tremendous amount of unmet potential in netbooks, the foundation Google Chrome represents for web apps, and what could happen if laconi.ca reaches the status of POP, SMTP and IMAP.

Which brings me to the important question here, who is stepping up to create the “what’s next” thing? I’m going to grant you that I just might have become jaded and a wee bit cynical, but chatting with several folks at BlogWorldExpo, people who’s opinions I value, I got universal nods of agreement. We haven’t see a really amazing something new in a while. Not the shift from 2.0 to 2.5 or 3.0 per se, but something that will have lasting importance.

Yes, touch computing did, as many thought (including me) it would, change how we’re dealing with devices. The iPhone is amazing so is Surface, these are taking interfaces to new levels and we have seen other interesting launches, but something is missing.

And I really wish I knew what that something is.

I wish I could put my finger on it.

Step back with me. No, not in time, up to the “big picture” level of things. We see more and more and better and better ways to share things, do things, buy things, sell things. We’ve seen tremendous innovation in making things faster, more reliable, smoother, integrated.

I love it. I love that I can toss my EeePc in a bag and be able to do things that I needed a larger computer for not that long ago.

Still, something is missing.

I’d love to discuss here, discuss at BarCamp this weekend, what that something might be. Where should we go next.

This would have made a great panel at BlogWorldExpo, and I’m sure that groups of people were talking about this over dinner. I’d love to hear about it.

Let’s hear what your vision of what’s next is, while I mull and formulate my own.

I’ve reached a point recently where I’ve been forced to reflect on just what it is I do. What is my value to society and the world? What is it about me that makes me a "contributing member of society"?

Looking at what I’ve been doing for the last 3-4 years or so you could, perhaps should, have drawn the conclusion that I’m "into" social media.

That is true after a fashion, but I think it goes well beyond that. I’ve been spending the past, oh, 20 plus years working on refining my thinking, mind, and knowledge to be able to take disparate parts and then turn them into a (semi) cohesive whole.

Not always an easy thing mind you.

Now I’m looking at this world of social media and social networking in a new light. Perhaps a harsher light.

I’ve been looking at it in terms of what is new, different, cool, and interesting about it.  Essentially, all based on: "What do I want to do now"?

There is no social media or social networking. It hit me that really all of this is just BS.

This isn’t Huxley’s Brave New World or Orwell’s 1984, we’ve just reached a congruence of factors that allow more people to think they have a voice. We’ve reached a point where the sharing of information has been mistaken for passing on knowledge, but as Caleb Carr wrote "information is not knowledge".

What, I think, has been missed is that nothing that we’re doing right now is anything new. People have talked, written, connected, built relationships and connections for thousands of years. What is new is that our technology has allowed us to expand the boundaries of who we can connect with. Beyond the village, province, nation, continent, beyond to include all of us.

I spent pretty much a week off line. I think I saw a TV on maybe once. My cell phone was off. Computer, disconnected from the "Interweb". Yes, I read and listened to music. Yes, my computer was turned on a few times, but I found it incongruous to the mental space I was in, something akin to showing up to prom in a wet suit.

In this week offline, I had time to think and reflect (when I wasn’t basking, counting crocodiles, or sipping rum drinks), from that is that phrase above:

Social media and social networking is BS, but it will work anyway.

The point isn’t how many posts people write, how many AJAX-powered to-do lists, or Ruby on Rails based micro-messaging systems we have, it’s the realization that what we’re doing isn’t new but just, well, interesting.

Realizing this is pretty astounding, even frightening, if you want to base your career on social media.

Frankly, I don’t think I do anymore, because it isn’t social media but society, technology, and communication that are the lasting parts. It’s being able to take information, ideas, passions, and beliefs and make them blossom in other people’s minds.

I’m good at writing. I’m good at marketing. I’m good at applying the right technology to the right problem. I’m rather good at seeing the bigger picture. Oh, and by the way, I get these new tools pretty well. I’ve even helped build a couple too.

Still, when I sit down, listen to what I really have to say, I know I love putting all the pieces together. Which is ironic, because I dislike doing puzzles. Go figure.

Yes, social media and social networking is BS. It isn’t new or Earth shattering. It isn’t anything already done in the past, it’s just being done better now. However, because of this permanence of communication, and because we can’t help but to what to share with each other, it’s all going to work out in the end.

And for the record, no, I’m not quitting blogging or other of these new tools. I still love to write and use all these tools to pull in scads of information for me to process and digest. Tools, remember, think tools.

However, in the end, maybe I’m the one who’s full of BS.