Another Unexplained Facebook Mystery • 23/365 •

I excitedly went to Stella Artois' Facebook page to watch a behind-the-scenes teaser for the "Crying Jean" commercial that will air during the Super Bowl. It stars Adrien Brody, who I love, and is all smoky-beatnik-jazzy-moody, so I just had to see.

While on the topic of Stella Artois, I wondered about the making of the brew itself, so I went to the "info" tab. Info tabs are much easier to find on business pages than on personal profiles lately. Facebook keeps moving stuff, coming up with new stuff, giving away our personal stuff, and stuff. Sometimes it's a great improvement - other times I just get confused. For some reason, on the info tab, Facebook has created a section to list the url of your ... Facebook page? Yep. WTH? 

Why on earth would anyone need that right there, when they are already on the page itself? I think I just have to get used to not having every mystery solved when it comes to Facebook. Live comfortably in uncertainty, very Zen. Facebook is teaching Zen lessons. Nice.

New (to me) Media Sunday • 9/365 •

Sometimes I play games for work. Really, for work! New technology, new trends, news and events – are all twists and turns along the professional and personal roads we navigate. I can't be an expert in everything, but It is my job to be aware. 

Beginning today and henceforth, on Sundays, I'll share a new (at least to me) thing or two that I'm dipping my toes into. I would love your feedback if you're using these. How are they affecting you, how do you see them affecting the world?

Social media has brought us all together. Facebook is King right now, and as I mentioned in "Nostalgia at the speed of technology," we are becoming less expressive because of how close together we are. It's kind of like the population in general – once upon a time we lived far apart in farms or houses or shacks. We would visit our neighbors and we knew all about them. Then as population exploded and we moved into apartment buildings, sharing the same walls, we stopped even speaking to our neighbors much less getting to know them. 

That kind of separation is against our nature, though. We are social creatures. So the next logical step after the great migration to Facebook is segmentation. We'll see more and more subcultures crop up again, where people feel safe to express themselves in a certain way. 


This Sunday's two medias are a product of that segmentation. 

Path

Path is an iPhone app. It's a social network that runs only on pictures. You are only allowed 50 friends, so they will most likely actually be your friends, and you are only allowed to post pictures, so they will see what you're up to. You tell your story with pictures. Fun! Drawback is your friends all have to have iPhones, too. Because of that, I haven't used it enough to judge it well. 

Quora

Quora is a continually improving collection of questions and answers created, edited, and organized by everyone who uses it.

It's a wiki for q+a. Where it gets segmented is that you "follow" questions and categorize them and each question can become a story. You'll see questions ranging from, "What are the best running snowshoes?" and "Do the majority of founders of tech start-ups come from wealthy families?" to "If I'm not happy with life, should I commit suicide?" 

Quora makes it easy for you to follow your friends from other places, so right away you're in a group that you recognize. Jury is still out for me as to how useful it is, or whether it's just a very interesting way to spend time.

Are you using either of these? If so, what are your thoughts?

The lighter side of marketing • 4/365 •

After yesterday's emergency blog, I thought I would lighten things up a bit. It was fun coming up with these ... please share yours if you have some good ones!

How many graphic designers does it take to change a lightbulb?

White space signifies a working lightbulb best, so how about just the word "change" in 14 pt Helvetica Light Compressed, just right of center? 

How many social media experts does it take to change a lightbulb?

You can't expect the lightbulb to change just because you're there, you've got to have a conversation with it and develop a relationship. Then change can be allowed to happen organically.

How many Facebook users does it take to change a lightbulb?

That depends if you're talking about a lightbulb on the wall of a "fan" page, a "profile" page, or a "business" page, and you may or may not know it even needs changing, depending on your notification settings and number of friends.

How many creatives does it take to change a lightbulb?

Why does it have to be a lightbulb?

How many artists does it take to change a lightbulb?

Ooh, it's all smokey! Wait, don't change it, that's really cool. Let me photograph/paint/draw it first! 

How many art historians does it take to change a lightbulb?

Eleven: One to change the lightbulb,

five to show earlier versions that influenced it, 

and five to say the changing was actually done by the changers' apprentice.

How many SEO experts does it take to change a lightbulb?

First you have to fix the directions. They aren't labeled, tagged, coded and prioritized properly. A burned-out lightbulb in the dark will never be found otherwise.

How many PR reps does it take to change a lightbulb?

The "Sparkle in the Dark" event will be sponsored by a dozen businesses who donate their time and tools to the effort, and part of the proceeds from recycling the old bulb go to charity.

Nostalgia at the speed of technology • 1/365 •

Star date: January first, two thousand and eleven. I begin my 365 days of blogging today. New Year's Day is a good day to gain perspective through reflective and resolute vision, to re-evaluate and adjust course towards goals and dreams. I have a process for this that I try to do every January. Today, though, it seems glaringly obvious to me that it needs to happen more often than yearly. As Bob Dylan says: 

"If your time to you is worth savin'

Then you better start swimmin'

Or you'll sink like a stone

For the times they are a-changin'."

• ch-ch-ch-ch-changes • 

In 1982 "Tron" broke special-effects and conceptual ground. Twenty-eight years later in the sequel, "Tron: Legacy," an aged Alan tells Flynn's son Sam that he has received a page from a number at Flynn's old arcade. Sam's response is, "You still carry a pager?"

My 10-year old son turned to me and asked, "Mommy, what's a pager?"

"It's this thing we had back in the 80's - like a phone that you couldn't call from. You would call it and put a number in. Then the person who gets it finds a pay phone, puts a quarter in and calls you back. It's like one-way texting without the text. Just numbers. It was really handy!"

Looking back, my technological and cultural renaissance started with MTV. I can't imagine what I would have thought back then if someone would have told me about today's smartphones. I could only relate it to something on Star Trek. We didn't have the internet yet, and mobile phones were only in wealthy people's cars. Videos were on tape, photos were on film, music was in the store, research was done in the library and I used to call a radio station when I couldn't think of who sang a song.

Back then, the year 2000 sounded futuristic, as if we would all be 100 years old, wearing enormous shoulder pads and piloting our cars through space. I thought it would never arrive. Conversely, I knew things like virtual reality holographic video were coming, but I never dreamed it would be so fast! 

We're gaining momentum so quickly it makes my head spin. Anatomically modern-appearing humans originated about 200,000 years ago. The wheel and agriculture came 10,000 years ago. Written history, 6,000 years ago. Transportation via chariot, 4,000 years ago. Automobiles, 240 years ago. Airplanes, 120 years ago. Radio, television, computers, remote controls, internet, gps, iPads and so on, all in the past 100 years.  

My MTV was followed by an Atari home video game system in 1982, a Tandy keyboard that used BASIC language in 1984, a pager in the early 1990's, the internet, a cell phone, a laptop, then a short lull before the social media flurry hit civilization as we knew it.  

• a golden age • 

There was a period of time after the social media flurry hit and before Facebook at MySpace for dinner, which was kind of a golden age. Maybe it was the eye of the storm as it passed over us. I look back on that time like "the good old days" of social media expressionism. Blogs were fresh and most anyone who had one was actually a thinker, an artist, a journalist, had something to say. MySpace was cool and expressive, people were uploading art, music, poetry, writing and deep thoughts. It was a supportive community of like-minded strangers and friends. If you blogged on MySpace during its golden age, people not only read it, they commented. Thoughtfully. Sometimes the string of comments was more interesting than the blog itself. You were only allowed 12 photographs, but It was a philosopher's paradise.

The internet was relatively uncluttered. Your creative, charitable or political message stood some chance of being seen at random. Twitter started up and had few enough members that it showed you a visual of your connections in a giant, interactive grid-like map. Your tweets were not lost in a stream of voices. 

It's all a blur now. How long ago was it? It was something like 2004 - 2007, give or take a year. I look back on it with nostalgia, knowing we will never get it back. I love Facebook and the fact that I can find just about anyone on it, but along with everyone's old friends from high school there are parents, bosses, clients, exes and children. Facebook hasn't just broken down the walls between us by linking us together, it has also built walls up around creative, free-spirited expression. I love having my wall written on, though, so please do so!

• chasing that high • 

We might never have that golden age back, but my bet is that there will be other ages with even greater potential for creative expression and change. I'm always looking for the next wave because I don't like something as much once everyone likes it. It ruins the spirit of that thing somehow. I look around every corner for new technology and trends that give that feeling of having climbed to another level and arriving at the edge of a cliff. A cliff where paradoxically, if you step off you don't fall down, rather you find yourself on another higher level where the world is just a little bit different and new things are possible. Magic. Like a video game. It's an addiction.

WTFacebook Ads [part 2 of the continuing saga]

Okay, it's not really a saga, but it is an advertising travesty.

In [part 1: This blog could lower your interest], I broached this topic and thought in my idealistic way that the random, meaningless, attention-getting gimmicks would phase out in favor of clear and relevant content. I was wrong (big surprise!).

They're not getting much better, in fact they might be getting worse? Not sure if they can. Here are more from my growing collection of Facebook ads that either make no sense, are stealing from a celebrity, or are misleading along the lines of snake oil salespeople of old and modern day tabloids.

Yeah, I repeated the "Scholarships For Moms" because that guy is so NOT A MOM! Does anyone know what all this means? What does it say about society? What does it say about carrot feathers?

('’)

Buzz on Google Buzz Getz Big Buzzer

If you had a cruise ship with no passengers, it wouldn't matter how decked out with luxurious and useful amenities, fantastic movies, art and music it was, or if it had a great cruise director to organize the guests and activities. With social media, just like with like parties, having the ship all to yourself is not a good thing. 

For two days now the buzzers have been buzzing about Google Buzz. The Google gaggle clammered, "Google's got a Facebook. It's Google's new Twitter. It's got update streams, comments and media sharing, right in your email!" My first reaction was, "Oh, like Yahoo?" 

Note the "buzz up" button at the bottom of this blog. It's not for Google Buzz, it's for Y! buzz. That's Yahoo. Yahoo has had it's own social network for years now, since Facebook was an infant. The Yahoo 360 Beta, which was great like MySpace in the beginning, finally closed in 2009 because not enough people were on it. Yahoo integrated much of the 360 info right into their regular profiles. I can blog, update, comment, connect to other people, media sites, apps, get feeds and news, and so on right from my Yahoo email or home page.

Here's a look at my barely populated Yahoo stuff...

... and here's a look at my barely populated Google Buzz stuff:

Underwhelming.

I know Google is big, I know they're everywhere, they even ran my favorite Super Bowl commercial. But sober up techies, another social network is just another social network, no matter who owns it and this is sort of a knock off of Yahoo anyway. So it's not benefits we're comparing, it's location. Where do you spend your time? Do you feel like relocating everyone you know and all of your information? If you already use gmail as your hub, it will be great for you. If not, it's just another added feature that lives there. I don't see all the bees buzzing away from Facebook, Yahoo, Twitter or whatever hive they've already built, I see it as simply a benefit to gmail users.

PS: click the "buzz up" & Digg buttons, please and thank you!

('’)

Friends don't let friends friend randomly

Imagine this: You walk into a mall. People are everywhere, going about their business alone or in groups, in a hurry or strolling at their own pace. You are wandering along, browsing music and books, lost in your thoughts.

Out of nowhere, you feel a poke in your side. You turn around and some guy is standing there, hand extended in anticipation of a firm shake. "My name is Bob Smith, can we be friends?" he asks matter-of-factly. You stand there, looking at him in silent pause, waiting for him to say something more about himself and why he suddenly wants to be friends with you. You ask yourself, "Have I met this man before? Do we have mutual friends, and if so, what is the nature of those relationships? What made him come up to me and ask such a forward question?"

The silence is awkward. Not seeming to notice your confused trepidation, the man goes on. "Let's be friends! Then I can look at all of your photographs, listen in on your conversations, see how much time you spend online, I'll tell you what I am doing and thinking, we can play games, you can recommend me professionally, you'll trust me with your valuable reputation, and then all my friends can see you and maybe be your friends and poke you all the time, too!"

You don't know what to do. You don't want to be rude, you might know this guy from somewhere. You don't want to admit you have no earthly idea who he is, but you don't want to acquiesce and trust this person with your personal information and connections. Besides, you don't even know if you like this person or if he is of any value to you in any way. What to do, what to do?

It's an uncomfortable yet all-too familiar scenario.

As I write this right now, a friend of mine popped up on IM to ask me if some guy has friended me.  "Cos he seems to be friending almost everyone on my page! I have no idea who he is. It's creepy cos he's just randomly friending my personal connections."

I've got three friend requests sitting in my Facebook notifications right now that I have no idea what to do with, so they just sit there. Who are these people? One is a complete stranger - profile pic is of a baby, not in my network, no friends in common. One is a Realtor office in Ocala, we have 16 friends in common. The other one, well, I really don't know what it is to be honest. It might be a fan page for motorcycle riding in the area, or a magazine maybe, but it has a realtor logo on it and it's a personal page... so I'm confused despite the 14 friends in common.

I don't know who is behind any of these pages and so I will not give them my endorsement, much less my friendship. I could send a note to them asking who they are and how they know me, but then that's putting me out of my way and making me ask the awkward question.

Social networking is SOCIAL. It's not just about clicking around randomly and seeing how high you can get the numbers. It's making and strengthening relationships, being genuine like you would in the "real world" because it IS the real world. It's got to make sense for someone to be your friend, and the more sense it makes, the better (or more useful) of a friend (or potential customer) they will be to you. Have a reason for adding someone to your network and if you're not sure they will know you by your name and face, for the love of Google, please add a quick personal note.

I'm still trying to decide what to do with those requests... should I send a note back asking who they are, or just ignore or decline them like I usually do? Maybe I should have a stock note ready to send, something like... "Hi there, where do I know you from or why would I be interested in connecting with you?" ... but ironically, that might be too impersonal.

Farming is the new black

Farming? Really?

Yes, if you're not already hooked on plowing, you've at least seen a related request (or a hundred) come across your Facebook. As you read this blog, it's already too late to spot this trend at the early-adoption stage. Be it in cyberland or live earth, farming is sprouting up and growing fast.

When it comes to trends, I find that I get tired of themes and buzzwords right about when they become most relevant to the general public. Aesthetic trends, for example – just when something I like becomes readily available, I know it's time to move on. Remember the suns and moons, Raphael's angels, concentric circles and grunge? Alas, I loved them all once. The disappointment that comes when I can easily find what I like gets replaced by a curiosity for what's new and not on every-other teenager's shirt.

To stay ahead and set trends, you have to move fast and be different. You shouldn't be doing what the masses do. However, the largest percentage of consumers happily ride the big waves. They were out there buying suns and moons set in dark blue and gold because it was "in." They are still caught up in a 70's and 80's bag that's mixed up with hip-hop and grunge right now, though thankfully I believe the "swoosh" is no longer the most popular logo element in new designs. If you're selling to this larger percentage of consumers, then it's not always a bad thing to be with the current trend as opposed to ahead of it.

"In this economy...blah blah blah."  Those words are old now if you're a trend-setter but they're not old to the average person feeling these tough times. They're still highly relevant. How are advertisers speaking to consumers right now? With themes of value, of a deeper meaning, back-to-the-basics, of helping out and pitching in. In a time when the government is needed most, it is trusted least. Self-reliance used to be running your own stock portfolio, heavily investing in a 401K and saving for kids' college. Now, self-reliance has gone back to basics. All the way back to the farm.

People are growing food gardens in their own back yards. From the White House down to the hoods and everywhere in between, harvesting is IN. While I don't get delicious collard greens from the computer like I do from my friend Shonna's real-life garden, I recognize a value of virtual farming in the numbers. Facebook alone has over SIXTY Farm-related games and quizzes plus tag-along apps. FarmVille (the offshoot of YoVille on Facebook) is leading the hoe-down with 33 million monthly active users – over FarmTown (also on Facebook) which reaps-in 18 million monthly active users. 

This growing farming trend is about community as much as self-reliance. Social networking has gone to the farm, at least with the over-thirty's and their mothers. All of these farm games involve visiting and working on friends' farms, giving gifts to each other, and some even include chat rooms. While this trend might pass and go out to sea with the concentric circle craze, it's worth taking note of now. Ride the big wave. People are willing to pour their time into food gardening in the dirt and virtual farming on the computer because of the sense of accomplishment, growth, significance, connection and contribution that they get in "economically challenging times like these."