johnbollwitt.com

I’m not mentioning this to be mean or rude, but there is something to be said about the sphere of social media that I and many others exist in and what it means to actually be social. It’s a tough line to walk, so let me explain a little.

In the realm of myspace, you add as many people as you possibly can. I never quite understood this mentality until I tried to build an account for RadioZoom and use it as a matter of promotion for the podcast. Pretty soon, promotional reps for various bands were adding me as friends and sending out mass messages of what their bands are doing. That’s a great mechanism for the network, but last time I checked, I have a very hard time making it to rock shows in North Carolina even though I’m on the guest list. I certainly appreciate the offer though.

The point I’m trying to make is that I have never met these people, and it’s fairly clear that they’ve never met me, nor do they know what I really do, where I’m located, and that I haven’t actually published an episode of RadioZoom in quite sometime.

Enter the realms of Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter, and I have taken a very upfront, social approach from the onset of joining these networks. For the most part, I try to apply a one degree of separation before claiming someone as a contact or friend. Or to put it in simple English, I like to at least meet someone before I actually say that we’re a contact or friend.

It’s a simple matter of putting a face to the name. If I say that I know you in a social network setting, it makes much more sense to me to actually know you in a setting that goes beyond a connection between your terminal and mine.

And just to address the age old story of the person on the other end not being who they say they are, there is still some merit in that mindset. You can’t let that scare you though because how many times have you not believed something someone told you until you could prove the fact for yourself? It’s the same concept, and the episode of The Simpsons when Bart gets a credit card when he fills out the application as a joke is a bit of testament to that. If the credit company actually checked on this applicant, they would have known that “Santos L. Halper” was the family’s dog[wiki] and not an actual person.

Since moving to Vancouver, the world of the Internet has progressed from this nerdly world of ones and zeros and into a sphere of actual social settings where the computer is replaced with actual meetings and face to face conversations. Of course the convenient proximity I have to a major metropolitan area lends to this compared to others without such social resources, but it’s tough to just add someone to whatever social network because you know someone I know and yet we’ve never had any interaction whatsoever.

Now, yes, I do bend these self imposed rules from time to time because social interaction can derive in the sense of emails, Twitter @’s, Facebook messages, etc. This might happen because I find what you’re saying or doing to be worthwhile in terms of quality. However, if the quantity of what you are producing, in terms of content or contributions into the social sphere, lacks substance or is useless dribble, then that factors into things as well.

With so much to see, hear, read, and choose from, I simply need what’s worthwhile to me and my time. I know I can’t be the only one with these “rules”, so feel free to add your thoughts on this complicated topic below.

Delicious recently did an overhaul of their site design about three weeks ago, and many folks have already weighed in on what they thought about it.

For me, I have to use something for a while before I really give my full sense of how a redesign like this actually affects my work flow because I use their service so much.

For me, it’s way too hard for me to grasp the concept of writing it as “Delicious”. For so long, it’s been “Del.icio.us.com”, and I think that’s a large, geeky reason that I liked the site. In this redesign, they also did a rebranding and dropped the extra dots. It’s a small thing, and I’m getting over it. I always loved the clever use of the .us domain.

Otherwise, I love the new Delicious. The redesign has long been needed, and it finally matches up with how much I like the service.

For me, I read a variety of RSS feeds. Using Google Reader and Firefox, I can use their browser plugin to quickly bookmark items to either share with others or come back to later. This method might not work for everyone, but it works very well for me. Bouncing between computers at home or work, I can tag something that I find interesting.

Mostly it’s the design that has taken a little time to get used to before I could really decide what I thought. Visually, it works better than it previously did. Sure, it looks prettier, but you can make anything look good and not have function. Delicious seemed to step up to this notion of the K.I.S.S. principle that I’m a big fan of.

If you would like to see the things I tag, feel free to check out my Delicious page.

Dear MySpace,

MySpace still sucks. It sucked from when it first started and it continues to suck. Sure, it’s a great social media platform where bands can preview some of their tracks, people can send messages back and forth, and strippers can have direct, albeit virtual, contact with their fans.

You started in 2003, so why do you still act like it? There is no rhyme or reason to the site. Where ever there is a space to put something, it gets filled. It all falls under a category of some type, but the design concept is… well, what design concept? It’s near gibberish.

You’re not Digg, and no you’re not Facebook, and there is a good chance that you never will be. Those folks still understood what the meaning of design overhaul meant for the sake of their site. It was for the better good of those who interact with the function of the website, and the effort makes those people want to come back for the simple fact that it makes sense.

RadioZoom has a page on your site, and I hate having to interact with it. Yes, it is an amazing way for artists to contact the podcast, but I deplore having to login and do anything with your site. The fact that users make it even more difficult by blinging out their MySpace pages, bands hardly excluded, makes it that much more worse. I know that’s not your fault, but if you did something about that, I would be quite over joyed.

Here’s an idea that I would like to see. As someone who throws music into their podcast, why not make it an easy way for bands to actually share music with those who are deemed good enough to download it, such as podcasters? Right now, it’s all or none for bands to select which songs their would like to have people download. If a band had the option of authorizing podcasts to grab their uploaded selections for play in a podcast episode, imagine the possibilities that could have.

You probably don’t care that I don’t like your site, and there are plenty of people out there that are just fine with it. You don’t like me, and I don’t like you. I’ll still pop in once in a while to check in on things and do my best to figure out who has contacted for what reason because of the sad fact that there is some usefulness out of your service. It doesn’t make using MySpace enjoyable though.

As if there aren’t enough things going on in Vancouver that relate back to technology, social media, or something to do with Facebook, Twitter, or whatever social networking tool you use, here comes another one.

Third Tuesday in Vancouver is an event that focuses on bringing people together to share ideas and concepts about various things relating to the online world. In fact, let me allow the Facebook group to explain it better.

THIRD TUESDAY is a monthly meetup for communications and marketing folks interested in learning/sharing more about the practical applications of social media in business.

Third Tuesday has real world chapters and meetups in Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver, Montreal and Halifax.

Third Tuesday meetups typically include a guest speaker who talks with the group about different social media technologies and trends ranging from blogging, podcasting, social networks to influencer marketing and online WOM techniques — and how these things apply to communication, marketing, community building and society. We really try to encourage group discussion and learning, and we do this by keeping our meetups very casual and open, but focused too so that our members walk away with new insights and actionable ideas for their businesses.

Third Tuesday is also an opportunity to simply network with industry peers, to share knowledge, experiences and perhaps a few laughs and drinks too. So, if you’re interested in some thought provoking discussion about new media marketing and communications, please join us for Third Tuesday.

Even though I was (depressingly) unable to attend BarCampVancouver due to my work schedule, this will be a neat opportunity to not only experience this realm of meetups, but I’ll also get to see some of those folks from BarCampVancouver as well. I’m also curious to hear about what tools or methods people are using for the realm of business, especially when it comes to thinking outside of the box to do unique, successful things. Should be good.

I find this incredibly ironic that this story came out the other day.

If all of your friends jumped off a bridge, would you jump too? The answer to this age-old question is, YES! Just ask the millions who’ve succumbed to their peers’ collective urgings and have migrated to the ultra-popular Facebook.

Truth be told, peer pressure is the driving force behind popular social networking websites. And the Net is littered with one-time, gotta-have-a-page-there sites. Remember LiveJournal, the original social network of blogs? Then came the Friendster frenzy. MySpace showed up and stole the show with their bells and whistles. LinkedIn, a business-focused social network, brought cool to the cubicle. And now it’s Facebook, and tempting real-time status updates with Twitter. Net users are busy bopping from hot social network to hot social network, dragging their digital lives along with them.

Despite all the time a user spends adding friends, posting pics, and writing witty blurbs, a website’s relevance is dictated by the user’s peer group. To be popular — or even just stay in touch in today’s digital world — you have to log on to the sites your friends frequent. This requires staying on top of social networking trends. If not, you may be left out of the conversation. [globeandmail]

With that being said, I am now findable on Facebook. I already had a few people find me, and that was just after an initial sign-up. A cousin of mine that is going to grad school in Kansas has found Rebecca based on matching up last names. Now he has discovered that his family tree extends into Canada. How’s that for social networking?

I’m still getting unburied from a real backlog of projects, not to mention the ever present job hunt. (Yes, Vancouver, I’m looking at you.) So you can find me there, but my profile is really lacking. When I have time, I’ll do what I can. (yeah, right)

I’ve been resisting the MyBlogLog for some time. Rebecca is more about these social networking things than me sometimes, but this is a situation where is makes more sense when it comes to the world of new media and social media. In other words, she was right.

MyBlogLog enables you to take advantage of your existing presence on the Web and ties it into communities of like-minded readers and authors to add context to the conversations in which you take part. [mybloglog]

So there it sits on my sidebar for now. I’m not a huge fan of people seeing that I’ve been snooping around their site, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t log out and clear the cookies from your browser. The added benefits of networking with other bloggers, however, is a very nice element of their service.

Mmmm… this kool-aid tastes great!

To be honest, I’ve never tried Second Life. I did think about it. Even got as far as downloading it for the Mac and installed it. For months it sat on my hard drive, and I finally deleted it.

Create an avatar, a new identity, and a whole other life in Second Life. It’s Sims meets MySpace meets social networking on steroids. That is to say, it’s yet another way for people to sit behind a terminal and communicate with each other from all over the world. Except in the real world, you just sit in front of your computer. In this virtual world, you walk around, teleport, go to parties, meet people, and whatever else some one dreams up. Yes, there is, of course, cybersex as well.

Ok, I don’t know everything that goes on in Second Life, but there is a lot out there to give me insight. When I first heard about it, I was curious and found the idea kinda cool. The fact that this really isn’t a game is where I started to rethink it. Podshow has its own island, Duran Duran is doing something in there, and now Sun Microsystems has joined in the party.

Sun Microsystems knows all four million Java developers worldwide can’t attend its popular JavaOne trade show, but it thinks it might have found the next best thing.

Tuesday, Sun became the first Fortune 500 company to hold an ‘in-world’ press conference to show off its new pavilion in Second Life, the popular 3D online world. Sun said it plans to invest in the Sun Pavilion as a place for developers to try out code, share ideas and receive training.

“Our problem is that every year our largest developer conference (JavaOne) attracts about 22,000 people and we get to meet with them face-to-face for a week,” said Sun’s chief researcher John Gage during the virtual event. He said Sun hopes to reach millions of Java developers in Second Life with training and other support features. [internetnews]

I’ve never been one to be overly concerned if I am missing the boat with all the cool kids, and this is no exception. Sun has done something a little more remarkable with this, but if you really want to get all that you can out of Second Life, then you have to give them your credit card. I guess I’m just the type of person who prefers going out into the real world rather than virtually walking out my front door.