This Wall of Graffiti Reminds me of the Web

Creativity building upon previous creativity. Inspiration. Mashup. Collaboration.

Sound familiar ? Reminds of of the current ecosystem for the internet.

 

 

(found this video on We Love Viral )

Sharing and Spreading the Link Love on Twitter

The folks in my twitter feed are all about spreading the link love . As I continue to look for more people to add to my feed, I  search for folks on twitter who are  not only involved to a degree in the high-tech industry, but folks who shared interesting blog posts, articles, studies, reports, etc in their twitter stream.

Twitter is my passive way to come across new, interesting and not always relevant content.  I cant emphasize how much I have learned from articles and blog posts that I have read that were all shared through link love.

Yet what I noticed recently is that a lot of folks have started importing multiple blog feeds (not their blogs)  into their twitter account and publish it using an automated platform.

I am not sure if the reason behind the RSS import into twitter is to really share with their readers new and interesting content,  “show off” that they know whats going on or maybe its just a way for them to raise their profiles on sites that rank twitter status and influence.  At least publish links to random & obscure blogs and not from the blogs that everyone and their mother reads on a daily basis.

This kind of behavior really aggravates me- I started following this person because I was truly interested in what they were tweeting about before they started importing blog feeds into their twitter stream.  Now my stream is filled with their imported RSS stream.

But at the end of the day  I am looking for new and interesting content, not the “same old” and what I really want, is *your* take on why you are sharing this link with me. I follow the folks in my feed for a reason – and its not to hear more regurgitation but to hear personal insight.  Share the personal insight – I crave the personal insight.

 

Bring on the link love and leave behind the automated RSS  in the twitter stream.

The Internet Ruined my Social Skills

Originally posted on my old blog on 16.9.07

I remember the days when I used to make phone calls to connect to friends, family and business colleagues. Those days are long gone replaced now by the internet. My personal evolution away from using the phone to connect others started with email, then AOL chat-rooms, IM chatting, Skype, social networking sites like Friendster and Myspace, blogging, Vonage, LinkedIn, Facebook and now Twitter.

I have watched my personal relationships with most of my friends diminish over time while my business connections have grown and strengthened.

I remember being a teenager and always being on the phone with friends and we would share our daily lives with one another. We would rehash the day events repeating stories over and over on every call to every friend until it was time for bed.

Email arrived in my house but at the time I was the only person I knew who had email and so until my friends caught up with me the technology sat on the back burner. AOL and chatting in the Jewish chat rooms became the hottest thing to do. I chatted with my friends and random people in the chat rooms of AOL but never once did I meet a stranger from the online world in person.

By senior year of high school I had a close friend who was in Israel for his freshman year of college and we communicated mostly via email (the phone calls were too expensive). I printed out and saved those emails for years and years re-reading them like old love letters. I never wanted to lose them and felt that by printing them out I would never have to worry about loosing them.

My freshman year in college was spent in Israel and I branched out of my old AOL email address and old IM into the new world of MSN hotmail. I still use that email address from almost ten years ago. Email then was more widespread and we used it to connect to our parents back at home and forwarded on the chain emails that today I now mark as spam.

Instant messaging and email helped my keep in touch with my new friends from all over the world. Phone calls were sporadic at best with my international friends but they did occur. Our sporadic emails would be long and detail oriented letters sharing the intricate web of college, boyfriends, husbands and life.

By the end of college everyone had a mobile phone and we were all instantly connected to each other. Any time I felt the need to share with a loved one a thought, feeling or idea I just dialed their number and connected to them. It was a time of instant gratification and instant connection.

Fast forward a few years later when I decided to move to Israel and leave behind America I came armed with my new MySpace and Friendster accounts and my new Vonage router allowing all of my US friends to dial a NY number to reach me abroad. The MySpace and Friendster accounts were the sites my friends back at home were used and this was a way to instantly connect and share my life with them via the internet. I shared pictures, sent cute notes and posted a message on their page letting them know when I’d call them that day.

I also began a blog in 2004 as a place for me to chronicle my moving to Israel and verbalize to the whole world what I felt and still feel is important to me. The blog shows my evolution from being a wet behind the ears “olah” to a more knowledgeable and mature “olah”. I branched out from just blogging about my life here in Israel to my work life which revolves around technology. I no longer feel the need to separate my love for Israel and my love for technology. My friends were able to comment on my blog and it was rare for my blog posting to initiate a conversation between me and my readers. I was able to share and connect without doing it face to face or even over the telephone.

My new friends in Israel took up blogging as well for the same reasons. They too wanted to share with their friends back at home and their new friends here in Israel what is going on in their daily lives. I love reading their blog entries and felt that this was a fantastic medium to get to know my new friends and new contemporaries that were also going through the same transitions I was going through. I too was able to share my opinions and connect with my fellow bloggers via their comment sections.

Fast forward to today where almost every one of my friends has a Facebook account. The frenzy around Facebook opening up its doors to the non-college email user was astounding. We began messaging each other, planning events online, creating groups for different purposes. Slowly as the excitement of Facebook wore off so did my connection to my friends.

Facebook replaced the phone calls and emails. Why pick up the phone and spend money when you could share your entire life via one site? My pictures, videos, blog posting, email etc are all displayed and sent via Facebook. I check Facebook more times a day than I’d like to count. I could chose to read the messages, flick through the pictures and read my friends walls to see what is going on with their lives without ever having to directly ask them “How are you?”

The downfall is that now in order for me to really connect to my friends I need to start all over. I need to learn how to have a conversation that does not bore me with the details. I cannot scan a conversation looking for the key points. I need to remember that people communicate differently in person then they do online.

I love technology and I love my technology evolution so far. What I need to remember and what I think others need to remember is that technology is great but it does not replace face to face relationships or phone calls. In order for there not to be a backlash against technology we all need to figure out how to utilize the technology in our own ways without forgetting how important a personal connection is. These technologies are there to enhance our current and hopefully new relationships but never to replace the current methods of connecting with solely an online connection.

Negative Aspects of Social Networks – a Flashback from 2007

(This post was originally posted on my old blog on 21/2/07)

Over the past few years there has been a great increase in social networking sites. I think it is wonderful way to connect to new and re-connect to old friends via these different sites. I personally have accounts on Myspace, Friendster, Facebook, schmooze to name a few. The reasons for joining the multiple sites have to do with various reasons but mostly due to the different friends on different sites.

As of right now I am seeing the darker side to the social networking world.

If you follow the US news, there has been a tremendous backlash against the social networking sites. A large point of contention is the accessibility pedophiles have with children via these sites. Recently a senator proposed a ban on social networking sites, Wikipedia, etc in schools and universities. As an adult I am wary of random strangers connecting to me via these sites. When I was a teenager and used AOL back the earlier days- I encountered pedophiles the via chat rooms. I am not as naive as I once was.

But I believe in the positive aspects of social networking sites and understand the dangers and risks of these sites. I have met and made new friends with individuals I would have never had the opportunity to meet or connect to without the help of these sites. Plus I have the ability to communicate to a larger audience in a much more timely fashion through these sites- and I can tell you planning a Thursday night out with the friends is much easier now.

But the biggest danger to the users of these sites are not only the pedophiles, stalkers but the users who chose to slander a person/people to a larger audience via these sites. These actions can cause tremendous psychological trauma to teenagers and adults alike. There are even cases of kids committing suicide based on what was happening in thier social networking life.

Recently I have come across a group where the founder of the group is using it to unleash his continuing barrage of insults directed at a specific person who is no longer in his daily life. The pretext of the group is to make fun in general but it is easy enough to understand who this is really directed at.

This groups exemplifies the darker side to social networking sites. My only wish is that the founders of groups like this one see clearly what they are doing and are not delusional about their intentions.

These sites were created to meet new people, talk to the friends you currently have, share information with each other but not slander and hurt others. There is an entire world out there and this is just one way of connecting to each other.

The Fallacy of Facebook Fan Pages

Facebook Groups have morphed into Facebook Fan Pages and on the most part they are worthless placeholders within Facebook’s closed garden.

The common (mis)conception is that brands need to have a Facebook Fan Page to show that they are active on the network but I want to point out the fallacies in this theory. Dont get me wrong, there are some amazing Facebook Fan Pages but they are used as a placeholder in the network. These fan pages bring something new to their fan base that their blog and other online activities do not offer.

But I am not going to go into detail for Facebook pages that get it right, this post is how brands get it wrong.

Creators of fan pages tend to assume that since Facebook has such an enormous amount of users, it is necessary to participate somehow on it. Most people tend never to look at fan pages once they’ve joined.  Can you remember the last time you went to check on a fan page?

Now lets keep our eye on the ball – using social media is about reaching eyeballs and creating brand awareness.  It is about engaging the brand’s user-base in a unique manner.

Now lets go back to how a Fan Page is built. The way a brand can invite people to join the group is to be friends with the person or to already be a member of a fan page. So typically the brand begins to build the fan page around the fan page owner’s friends, family and Facebook friends.  There are two options for the friends; support their friend by joining the fan page, or become annoyed from the constant nagging to join the fan page.  Currently there  is no blocking solution the same way one would block a Facebook application that is spamming their Facebook feed. The only solution to is ignore the endless fan page invitations and not answer the requests (and for me that is not an option).

Now from the point of view of the fan page creators, in order for the page to be “popular” it needs to have an ever increasing number of members which means that the creator is going to constantly invite their friends to join the page over and over again until it becomes viral.  Unfortunately turning something “viral” is not an easy feat nor is figuring out a creative way to engage current and potential fan page members.

Fan page creators like to point out how “easy” it is to access fans of their brand by using the fan pages. Gone are the days that the brand needs to sort through their entire friend list to reach out to the “appropriate” friends  when there is an update/ upcoming event/ etc. I guess those individuals never thought about using Facebook friend lists as a way to sort and manage their friends. Now everyone who is a member of a fan page is notified when there are updates  – regardless of the reason why you joined the group.

So the bottom line is that those that initially join are friends and family and those that dont join feel spammed.  Either way both group is spammed by the brand which in turn dilutes the brand image.

So think long and hard about creating a fan page and think even harder on how to offer  a different value proposition for its members to result in brand awareness.

Take a look at some of the interesting fan page screen shots here.

Moving from a Fremium to a Premium Model

Growing up I read  Newsday on a daily basis (might have something to do with Dear Abby and the comic section) and the New York Times over the weekend.

After moving abroad 5+ years ago, I still like to keep track of whats going on in my hometown and State. My parents still live there and Long Island holds a special place in my heart.  I regularly open up Newsday’s website to keep up with the local news but have been quite dissapointed with both the quality of the articles and espeically the redesign of the site.  In my opinion it is the complete opposite of a user friendly site.

But that will all change come Wednesday.

As of Wednesday, Newsday is changing its model from a fremium (free content) to a premium (pay for content) site. I am astounded that Cablevision (the parent owner of Newsday and Optimum Online) came to the conclusion that their content was worth a monthly fee.  I am more astounded at their “package deal” -Optimum Online customers have free access to the online news site.

Newsday does not provide me with articles or news I cant find anywhere else (for free).  It is a site I use out of nostalgia and I know I am one out of numerous folks who read  Newsday online for nostalgic reasons.

According to an article in Newsday about the upcoming changed, advertising revenue are down and this is a solution to combat the declining profits.  John Morton, head of the Morton Research Inc., a Silver Spring, Md.-based media consulting firm,  was quoted as saying “the current model of free online content is not a “rational model.” and “Despite the false premise that has been floating around for the last 19 years, that information on the Internet wants to be free, [it] is just not true,” Morton said. “People have always been willing to pay for information they have felt was useful to them.”

The inherit argument John is making is flawed. In this day and age – unless you are providing your readers with content that cannot be found elsewhere readers are not going to pay for it.  It is that simple. Wall Street Journal has a premium service for specific articles that are only found on their site and no where else  which is why readers are willing to pay for it.  I can easily open up the New York Post or The Long Island Press and read free content.

It is a shame that the newspaper and its owners cannot think outside the box to find new verticals to generate revenue and I  have a few ideas (the first starting with a redesign of the site) .

Turning a freemium site into a premium site for content easily available elsewhere will kill the site. And as an avid reader of Newsday for almost 24 years, I would be sad to see that happen.

(oh and ps.. I couldnt find a link to a website for Morton Research Inc and yet they are a media consulting firm which makes me wonder doubt how a business can talk about the internet and not have a corporate website. )

Mobile Meltdown Coming To Your Neighborhood?

I remember years ago when the only way to connect to the internet was by dial-up and how i would hit “redial” over and over again, each time with a bit more force hoping that my emphatic press of the enter button would be felt by someone (as if there was a little leprechaun on the other side of the line) and connect me to the internet over the rest of the users trying to dial in.

The mobile industry and innovation within the mobile market in the States has exploded and yet the infrastructure has yet to catch up with the needs of  mobile users.  Innovation within this space is like a superfast locomotive traveling on train tracks from the 1800’s. I wonder if the mobile carriers focus more of their attention on how to generate new revenue streams rather than focus on expanding their infrastructure to keep up with the ever growing needs of their current and potential customers.

Different US metropolitan cities are feeling a lack of  mobile infrastructure for mobile data.  The iPhone entered the market and drastically changed the playing field.  This device changed the way users  explore the internet by encouraging mobile applications for different online activities. The increase in the phone’s popularity coupled with the explosion of applications for the iPhone has crippled the AT&T infrastructure in cities that have a predominant mass using this device.

And this is just going to get worse. According to the latest Mary Meeker report 2009 is the year of mobile internet growth and it is just going to continue to expand.

New phones are entering the market that are built to be mini-computers. Every major carrier in the States is going to have to deal with the infrastructure issue and fast. Users are unable to cope with the lack of connectivity. Infrastructure for data and connectivity is going to cost money .

John Stratton, Verizon Wireless’s marketing chief  was quoted in a recently WSJ article titled  “The Coming Mobile Meltdown” saying he  “recently assured an interviewer that the mobile net would be open to all kinds of devices and uses. But he also predicted “a higher emphasis on usage-based billing, where if you consume more of the network, you pay more.”

I predict that if the mobile  infrastructure does not grow fast enough for consumers, innovators are going to create a solution cutting out the mobile carriers altogether. And then where will they be? Extinct.

(Image Courtesy of Zinkwazi )

Clients Who Cannot Think Outside the Box

Creativity will keep your company alive.  Just remember you could end up inside the chalk if you hate ideas and creativity.

(Flickr Image by Kate_A)

Boneless Chicken Wing or is it Schnitzel ?

This morning, like every morning, I spend my morning commute catching up on my daily reading.  My nokia E71i is not just my phone but my mini computer. I downloaded Snaptu to the phone and have been blessed with the ability to read my Google RSS reader on my phone.

But I digress.

I opened up the  New York Times mobile website and came across an article titled “ Boneless Wings, the Cheaper Bite” and re-read the title three times to make sure it wasnt the lack of caffeine that had me confused.

It had nothing to do with my lack of coffee and everything to do with rebranding chicken cutlets/nuggets/schnitzel.

Seems to be that the chicken market in the United States has changed over the past year so. Previously chicken wings were  the cheaper part of the chicken but now due to the economy, less wholesalers are buying chicken breasts (the healthier and more expensive part of the chicken) while the needs for wings have stayed steady. People are eating out less and less but the perceived notion is that a couple of beers and a plate of wings is not an expensive night out.

And so… the chicken industry has dropped the chicken breast prices while increasing the chicken wing prices in the wholesale market. The supermarket industry has kept the chicken prices pretty much the same but with aggressive sales on chicken breasts.

Establishments are trying to figure out a way to keep up with the customer’s need to eat wings but at a cheaper price and have come up with, get this,  Boneless Chicken Wings. What they have done is re-branded what we call schnitzel or chicken nuggets. What an ingenious idea mr. marketer, call a chicken breast covered in a sauce or breaded and fried  a “boneless chicken wing”. Except that once the patron bits into it the gig will be up. I mean, a boneless chicken wing cannot compare to the juicy fatty wing flavor.

This is one re-branding effort I am going to keep my eye on.

(Flickr Image courtesy of disneymike)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/13/business/economy/13wings.html?_r=1&hp

Web 2.0 Is A Generation of ”Little Narcissists”

(This post was originally published on my personal blog Sabra At Heart Sept 19, 2007)

I just came across a post today by Ayelet Noff of Blonde2.0 where she shares a fascinating article written by Yarden, a Medical Doctor specializing in Psychiatry characterizing the users of the Web2.0 /User Generated Content (UGC) generation.

And he nails the characterization of the users on the spot!

;……..Therefore what we find ourselves with is a full generation of  “little narcissists” who have been educated to think that their personal success is connected mainly to what other people in their surrounding think about them. And then we bring in the internet. On the Web, any average narcissist can find what he’s looking for: A few success stories of people who have become “famous” on the internet based on having thousands of friends on all the different networks, and the possibility for receiving constant, immediate, and limitless feedback is continued. From that moment on, every narcissist presents “his stuff” to the public without limitation of privacy out of hope for receiving acceptance and reassurance. Interpersonal relations continue to exist but turn into something less meaningful while the hope to “be discovered” becomes much more meaningful. In essence, the narcissist can now redefine himself, based on the response of others.