The difference social-ity really makes

I'm writing an article, usually a very solitary job and not my favourite thing, even though I'm a writer.

But this one's different.

This is a piece for February's Idealog Magazine about social networking, and I'm getting all Meta.

One of the features is a top 10 list of things you need to know about social networking. I could figure it out myself, or I could ask the community.

So I did! I just Twittered.

This makes the whole process much more interesting, much more like a conversation - which, ironically, is what I've always been striving toward in my writing.

I look forward to seeing what the community comes up with!

What use is Twitter??

When I describe Twitter to people, I often get blank stares.

"Why do you need more interruptions in your day? Aren't you already busy?"

Here are two examples of the true power of Twitter:

* Last Friday I was having real trouble with WordPress. In frustration I twittered "Wordpress, what part of
don't you understand?"

It was more of a rhetorical question than anything, but within the hour Nick Hodge from Sydney tweeted back the answer! (It's
, if you're interested.)

* Later that day, I sent out a tweet for feedback on some design tweaks to SimonYoungWriters.com. Again, within the hour, I had some feedback from a 16-year old freelance designer in Auckland!! (feedback which I'll attend to very shortly, Ludwig - thanks again!)

Is it just me, or is Twitter getting more social?

I've noticed a couple of things lately:

1) The A-listers, heavy outputters of information like Jeremiah Owyang and Robert Scoble, have slipped off the radar. They've been characteristically transparent about the reasons why - mostly, they're busy (which is a relief! They're human too!).

2) The rest of us - not especially famous people, but often producers of their own content either blogs podcasts or online video - seem to be commenting more often about more things and getting more conversational.

Maybe it's just that I've recently tapped into a vein of particularly chatty people, and been replying a lot more often. But it's great to see Twitter being used to its potential.

Facebook is better than OldFriends

OldFriends is the New Zealand version of the incredibly popular Classmates.com, and both of them offer the ability to reconnect with old school friends, or acquaintances, or crushes, or whatever.

When I first discovered OldFriends quite a few years ago, it was so exciting. I was able to reconnect with people! But after a few emails and promising to "keep in touch" with people - nothing. We all get busy, and there's usually no compelling reason to keep in touch, unless you work in the same industry or have friends in common.

That's why Facebook is so cool. While editing my profile, I added my high school (Avondale College 1993, FYI) and discovered I could search for others in the same year. Because I didn't go to uni I lost touch with a lot of folks from school, so it was really cool to get in touch with people.

So I've already had one person accept my friend request, and it's so cool to know I don't have to come up with a big long email message about how has life been since school, etc, etc... we'll get to know each other again just by being on Facebook.

There's something in that about how our concepts of social-ness (sociality?) are changing. But I don't know what that something is right now.

Switched-on Obama

Barak Obama's done it again. He's not only using Twitter, he's now on LinkedIn. And he's not sending a message, he's asking a question.

Smart.

Scoop: ‘Social Networking’ Trend Coming To Real Estate

Scoop: ‘Social Networking’ Trend Coming To Real Estate

Great to see Harcourts blowing the trumpet for social networking. This is an interesting example of being seen to be onto it, simply by saying we all need to be onto it. It's a peculiar trait of this time in history, when social networking and web 2.0 is so new, that there's a lot of room in between the know's and the know-nots to educate and position yourself and your company.

But as far as I can tell, Harcourts are the real deal. They've even got an office in Second Life.

But it's quite funny to have a press release simply saying 'we've been to a conference and we think that what they said was really important'. Maybe I should send a press release out every time I go to a conference ... or I could just blog it.

Hmm... I'd better stop, I'm sounding snarky. But while I'm teetering near the edge of snarky, I'll say this ... why put 'inverted commas' around 'everything'? It's kind of 'annoying'.

:)

But hey, the press release worked, it showed up on my Google Alerts for Generation C, and here I am writing about it instead of doing my other work. Great work, Harcourts!

Is this a hoax?

Or something that's desperately needed? The "about" video copy reads like "The Sound of Silence":

People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs
That voices never share
No one dare

visit NOSO

Maybe Wilf Jarvis was right?

Art of chatting face to face dying | The Daily Telegraph

Quote:

Psychologist, Harvard Business School researcher and etiquette columnist Robin Abrahams says societies have become filled with shrinking violets.

"In the past, only about 40 per cent of people reported being shy in social situations,'' Ms Abrahams said.

"It's now a significant problem affecting about half.''

...

"Society is changing so rapidly it's becoming difficult to navigate. There's no longer a set of rules for appropriate behaviour,'' she said.

"At the same time, technology is enabling us to opt out of difficult situations and causing people to become more insular.

...

Ms Abrahams said the answer was in developing a new approach to teaching social skills.

"It can't be about the memorisation of customs as it was in the past, because there are too many potential situations and too much social change and cultural diversity.

"It needs to be more like chess, based on strategies and general principles.''

Ms Abrahams recommends two key strategies: communication and practice.

"Communicating with others about their expectations is a huge part of feeling comfortable socially,'' she said.

"And so is practice. Social interaction is like anything else: the more you do it the better you become.''

Reminds me of Wilf Jarvis' comments, and also of the need for diversity. Everything is connected.

I'm a little behind

(Not I have a little behind, that's a different matter!)

I took until now to add Mad Young Thing to my Technorati account. Please add Mad Young Thing to your Technorati favourites, if you feel so inclined:

Add to Technorati Favorites

(No need to mention you know me, of course!)
(An explanation of that in-joke is here)

What's the deal with Debbie Weil? (Please comment on this post)

Friday morning I heard about the furore over Debbie Weil's simple request for people to comment on a blog she was facilitating - if they felt so inclined.

(Read the message on this blog post)

Storm in a teacup, I thought. Debbie's got a great reputation, and it's a small faux pas that would only offend a few ultra-uptight purists. (In fact, shockingly, I don't even see it as a faux pas).

But it has exploded in a heap of stinking controversy. Allan Jenkins (a great guy who I've met in Second Life) excoriated Weil on his blog, saying:

you'd have to be an obese PR blogger more than ready to shill for no pay

Surely this is misconstruing the whole point of a product blog? It's not about necessary selling the product, but sparking genuine discussion around the subject - at the level that it interests you. It's not shilling, it's talking. Conversing.

Surely that's simple enough? And not deeply offensive.

I think I understand where the objectors come from. They're zealous for the reputation of blogging and social media, and don't want it tarnished by cheap and nasty PR spammy yucky tactics.

But their response would tend to scare me if I were a marketer in a big company, with all the accompanying accountabilities, trying to venture into blogging. Thankfully for GSK it's been Debbie who's taken the heat, but if I were the CMO there - and I came from a traditional marketing background - I'd consider pulling the blog. Too much trouble, not worth it.

However, the pressure to be doing something in social media is so strong, that it's likely they'll continue.

Interesting comment on Maggie Fox's interview with Debbie Weil where Weil says GSK don't care, they're puzzled at what all the fuss is about. "They're well on to the next thing," she says.

Just a kerfuffle in a teacup, so it seems. Here are some of the leaves:

• David Gray's excoriation
• Debbie's response to the furore
• Stowe Boyd doesn't buy Debbie's response
• Don't be so hard on her, says Stuart Bruce
• And online copywriting legend Jeffrey Eisenberg asks Who makes the rules?
  

The first anti-Facebook rant I've read

Facebook is flavour of the year as far as social networks go. But Jeremiah Owyang has composed a stinging critique of Facebook. In a Twitter post Owyang said "i just realized i'm putting a lot of effort into facebook (even inviting you all) but I don't own any of this data, they do."

Good point. It seems that openness is the primary virtue of any internet app these days, because just about anything has the capacity to become vital infrastructure. Therefore, lack of openness is the worst sin.

In terms of openness, Facebook has been praised because it lets people create their own widgets (mini-applications). But the need to sign up or sign in to see anything - Jeremiah's got a good point.

Meanwhile, I haven't even begun to explore Facebook. I've set up a profile and been invited to groups by a few people. Add me as a friend if you like, just let me know you're a reader of Mad Young Thing.

---

PS: There's an interesting post from David Young (no relation, but we did check) about the purpose of social networking. Interesting reading.

Second Life on your browser

When I introduce people to Second Life, I encourage them to play around. But often the barriers to entry are too high for people just wanting a taste.

This might be the answer (or at least the beginning of an answer). At the moment it sounds like it's more complicated than just using the program you download from Second Life, but maybe it could eventually turn into a helpful auditioning tool for people just wanting to see if SL is for them.

Picture from Second Life Insider, heard about via Neville Hobson's Twitter feed.

Social networking explained in under 2 minutes

I found this short instructional video through Jeremiah Owyang's Tweets on Twitter. It's pretty good!



What's also impressive is the way they've made the original video very easy to share - through various video-sharing sites, through social bookmarking services like Digg, or simply as a file download.

A CEO asks, "What would you do in my shoes?"

If you're a member of Facebook (and if not, it's free and easy to sign up) you can sit in the CEO's chair of startup company Mahalo.com for a few minutes.

Jason Calacanis, former journalist and now serial entrepreneur, has started a discussion on Facebook to set the future direction of this nascent company.

A very smart move, and with social networking now ubiquitous it's fairly easy to get quality feedback from people all around the world. This is one of the things that the intarweb is really, really good at.

Another pointless but quite compelling web 2.0 app

Interesting how interconnectedness is built into this one: there are one-click links to add your celebrity profile to your Bebo, Facebook, MySpace and Friendster profile. And a Blogger link that doesn't work.

Not a bad bunch of people to look like, huh?

El Greco

El Greco
Originally uploaded by Wilhelm Augustus Hohenzollern.

I've been El Greco-'d! Thanks to the Face Transformer tool. Thanks to Jeremiah Owyang who Twittered about it!

(Getting El Greco-ed is certainly one way to lose weight!)

Social networking eats TV, Video Games

eMarketer.com - Social Networking Increases Internet Time

Interesting piece which shows that social networking has increased people's internet time overall, at the expense of TV (which we all knew was dying a slow death) and video games (the heir to the movie industry).

Okay, so this is just one study, and one conducted by MySpace, but it's an interesting piece of data nevertheless.

Interested in movies? Try MyCreativeCommunity.com

On the Creative Screenwriting podcast I heard about MyCreativeCommunity.com, billed as "MySpace for movie people".

I don't know anyone on there, so if you know me (or would like to), check out my page, leave me a message and I'll send you an invite!