Tech in the Trenches

Carl T. Holscher reporting from the front lines of the war on malware, battling Windows errors and whipping Macs into shape.

Tag: Twitter

September 23, 2011

Empty Shells

I feel like the move to google+ is like when you get tired of your broken, fucked up installation of Windows, and instead of fixing it, you’d rather burn the mother fucker to the ground and install Linux. In the end, it’s no better, just different, new, and clean. -Steve Mothershead

Reading this comment from a friend tonight not only made me laugh, but it made me think about social networks and put my thoughts I’ve had into words.

I replied,

All social networks are empty shells. They are what we make of them and who we follow to build them.

For starters, I missed the boat on Facebook. I had graduated college when Facebook launched. However, I was still working for the University so I had that all-important .edu address. So I signed up for Facebook because I’m a serial signer-upper.

I joined. I used it. I still use it… somewhat. Most of Facebook is not very interesting because just like every other social network, we, the people, are the product. The same goes for Twitter, Friendster, Myspace and Google+.

Without us, all of these places are the blank pages in a notebook. They are blank text files. We are the product being sold to advertisers. In all cases, we are not the audience, we are the product and are treated as such.

This made me think about how I interact with the three social networks I use.1

Google+

I am a member of Google+ mostly out of curiosity. I like the clean design and the lack of clutter and eye-bleeding customization options.

However, no one is really there. I follow a mix of friends, co-workers and smart people I really admire. There still isn’t much going on. Google+ just opened up to the public negating the need for an invitation starting yesterday so we’ll see if there’s a gold rush on the platform or not.

Facebook

Facebook I feel like I missed the boat on. I was there in the early days and it felt small((It was also TheFacebook.com back then.)) and I used it to keep up with friends. My brother, who was starting college as Facebook launched and was totally addicted and practically how he scheduled his life.

Facebook to me still feels like an overt way to sell ads to us and push products and sell our data to advertisers who can push more product upon us. That is also why their constant rearranging of layouts and privacy settings. Anything to make a buck and to make it more enticing for us to give them the what little information they don’t already have.

Facebook is a giant data mine. They need your data, all your data. Just now, in the last F8 Facebook revealed it wanted to “tell the story of your life.” They want all your data. They want to make money on your data. And they aren’t going to be sly or embarrassed about it.

I treat Facebook like a flea market. I follow mostly people I know in real life, ignoring some and reading others. I follow my family. I follow some brands who offer me value or because I signed up for a drawing and never bothered to delete them.2

Day in and day out, I don’t get a lot of value out of Facebook. There’s very few links I get everyday, save for a small group of people who are only on Facebook, that are of interest to me.

Twitter

Twitter is my bread and butter. I am very careful and skeptical of who I follow. I tweak and tend to my list of people I follow almost daily. I am always looking for a better mix of people who share things most interesting to me but without a lot of noise.

I follow a couple of lists on Twitter of people I don’t want to have to see all the time but I check in with a couple of times a day just to catch up on what interesting things have been said.

I even created a DC Metro News list because while I no longer commute by subway daily, I want to keep track of those contacts for when I need them.

Twitter is where I follow the thinkers and writers I find interesting and like-minded. I follow them on Twitter because for most of them, that’s where they are outside their blogs and newspaper columns.

  1. To various degrees. [↩]
  2. Isn’t this every marketer’s dream? [↩]
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August 27, 2011

My 140 Character News Network

Where were you Tuesday afternoon shortly before 2pm? I was standing in the lobby of a building on the National Institute of Health Campus waiting to get my ID Badge. I was about to get into an elevator and head to the badge office. However, when the ground began to shake I was standing in the lobby.

I was confused at first. At first, it felt like a very large truck or a subway train passing by. Then I felt the floor shake back and forth. I had never felt that before and I knew something was up. As I stood in the hallway with two co-workers, one suggested we head outside so we did.1

Once outside and away from the building, we heard the fire alarms going off inside the building we had just left and others nearby. There was no more shaking. I felt safe and it was clear we weren’t going back inside any time soon. So I turned to Twitter.

First of course, to add my voice to the chorus of tweets.

So that's what an earthquake feels like. #fb
August 23, 2011 1:54 pm via Tweetbot for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite
@peroty
Carl T. Holscher

But more importantly to find out how big a quake it was.

I was surprised to find its epicenter was in Virginia. I was also surprised to see how far it had been felt. First, there was a flood of tweets from Richmond friends. Then people in North Carolina. Then even a tweet from Boston and a few New York City asking if what they just felt was an earthquake.

Wow. This was a bigger quake than I thought. It was also interesting to read today why East Coast earthquake are felt so far from their epicenter.

The last earthquake we had in Virginia was when I lived in Richmond. It was December 9, 20032 when a 4.5 quake shook the Temple Building where I was sitting after having been up all night working on my advertising final project.

I remember being so sleepy I didn’t even realize the earth had shaken. I thought it was just me. I remember everyone else in class reaching for their cell phones and calling friends and parents. Meanwhile, I sat in my chair yawning and unable to comprehend the situation. Good thing I wasn’t in any danger.

Twitter was my first place for information. I don’t follow any news outlets except Bethesda Patch which is a hyper local news site in the Patch.com network which AOL runs.

The news and information I was receiving was coming in from friends and internet strangers who I trusted and followed. Their observations and retweets helped me comprehend what had happened, the scope of it and it was before any news outlet had put anything together.

Even 45 minutes later as I stood in the NIH Badge office awaiting my turn to get my information, photo and fingerprints taken the TV news was taking calls from locals to get their reaction and weren’t providing much information.

I was already well-informed. I checked out Facebook as well and shared what I knew and gained a bit more knowledge about the quake.

After I had checked Twitter, I texted my wife to make sure she was OK. Not that there was much of a chance of damage or danger, I wanted to be sure. My mother texted me shortly after that to confirm I was fine.

She had good sense not to try to call me. As soon as the quake hit, the phones were instantly flooded with calls from everyone else frantically trying to call their family and friends. Text and data seemed to be unobstructed while voice was nearly impossible to use.

Times really have changed when Twitter, SMS, Facebook and email are how I receive my information quickest and most accurately.

As we prepare for the Hurricane Irene, which by all indications is going to bring very high winds, many inches of rain and we could be without power for days, the news is talking about email and texting loved ones after the storm hits.

Twitter and the Internet have fundamentally changed how we communicate. While the storm to come is uncertain, it is good to know I can still receive reliable information from my hand-picked network of people located around the US and around the world.

  1. Clearly us East Coasters have no idea what to do in the event of an earthquake. [↩]
  2. Happy Birthday Mom! [↩]
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July 8, 2011

What is Twitter?

Trying to explain Twitter is the Rorschach Test for the 21st Century. The entire platform is exactly what you make of it. It is everything to everyone and can be tailored to match each person’s needs and desires.

In the beginning, there is nothing. As we find friends and heroes sharing their bits of wisdom Twitter evolves from a blank slate to a customized information pipeline specific to each one of us.

My Twitter feed is a stream of tech bloggers, photographers, designers, friends, co-workers and local food trucks. My feed is a reflection of who I am and who I interact with.

My wife’s Twitter feed is filled with food bloggers, family, and crafters. It is perfect for her just as mine is perfect for me.

Twitter is The Washington Post. Twitter is CNN. Twitter is TMZ. Twitter is AOL. Twitter is ESPN. Twitter is a yearbook. Twitter is a family album.

Twitter is exactly what you want it to be. Twitter is the media landscape in a world staffed by your clones.

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May 11, 2011

What you say online stays online

Twitter is where I carry on conversations with those I don’t know. It is where I get my news and follow my heroes within arms reach. It is where I get to share in jokes and find out about new posts, photos, apps, and ideas. Twitter is walking through a crowded marketplace speaking with friends and accidental eavesdropping on others.

Twitter is where I go first in the morning and last in the evening. Twitter is where my friends are and those I would call friends if I had more bravery.

Facebook is people I know. Coworkers. Friends. Family. Facebook is the default addition to old school chums and those who care enough to friend and follow. Facebook is a free for all. I allow anyone who wants to befriend me. Though there is more censorship and choice in posting. Some of the choice is due to who is present but most of the time it is simply because those on Facebook would not understand the depths of my nerdery.

That said, I do not trash talk. I don’t bad mouth anyone anywhere online. Random outbursts of frustration, sure but never something about a single person. No names. Ever.

What goes online stays online. It will never disappear.

Library of Congress is archiving tweets. Facebook is doing who knows what with our posts and data. Most likely selling it to marketers.

Don’t say it online if you won’t say it to the intended target’s face. Your invisibility and anonymity is not as good or true as you believe.

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February 7, 2011

Getting Started with Social Networking for your Business, Part II

Author’s Note: This article is part of a Tech Topics column I write for a small print publication focused on helping small business owners become more comfortable with technical topics.

In this second part of our article on social networking, I answer several questions about how to establish your prescence on Facebook and Twitter.

I understand that you need a personal Facebook account before you can set up a business account. The business account is in some way linked to the personal. Is that correct?

If you have a personal Facebook account, you can use that account to create your business page. If you set up the business account from your personal account, you will be able to interact with friends and family through the personal account and still have the ability to maintain your business page. There is a procedure for creating an account for business use only, but you will not have the usual level of interaction with others that a Facebook account provides. It is probably best to create a personal account, and then set up your business account from there.

Keep in mind that your personal page and the business page are separate from each other. If you decide, after creating a business Facebook account, that you’d like to interact with people on Facebook, there is a “Create your profile” link on the top of the business account. After clicking, Facebook will ask you for additional information beyond the email address and birth date required for the business account creation. Facebook does not allow one person to maintain multiple accounts.

To create a business account, go to this page, which will walk you through the process. Facebook has created a Frequently Asked Questions page, to assist with initial setup and getting started questions. Scroll to the bottom of the page for Business Account specific information.

Someone mentioned that if a business has 25 or more friends/followers (or whatever the terminology is) they can get a shortened Facebook address (username) with the business name. Any ideas on this?

When a business account is first setup the URL will be http://facebook.com/pages/YourBusinessName. Once your page has 25 fans you can claim a username for your page. The username becomes your new URL. In Facebook terms, a fan is a person who goes to your page and clicks the “like” button. For instance, if you to go http://facebook.com/coke you will be redirected to Coca-Cola’s page. On the very top of the page it says Coca-Cola with a Like button. Click that button to become a fan of Coke. The same applies to your business page. Once 25 people have become fans, head over to http://facebook.com/username and select a name for your page. If you get an error saying you’re ineligible, it most likely means you do not have 25 fans yet. Be advised, it is possible to change your username but you can only do so once so choose wisely.

Once I have a page setup, how can I get people to visit my page? Mashable (a site offering news and information about social and digital media) offers a good, basic guide to getting people to visit your page here.

I’ve read that Twitter has put out a helpful guide for business users. Where can I find this guide?

Facebook is pretty straight forward for anyone who remembers their old high school or college face books. Twitter, on the other hand, can be a confusing and scary world of short messages and weird symbols. Thankfully, Twitter has put together a comprehensive guide for businesses that want to use Twitter. It is located at http://business.twitter.com/twitter101. This guide will walk you through everything from getting started and learning the lingo to best practices and case studies. This will help you determine if Twitter is right for you. While in most cases, Facebook is right for just about anyone, Twitter is a little trickier. This guide will help you decide if Twitter can help your business, and will help you decode the jargon on Twitter.

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