Archive for the 'The Internet' category

Why I Told Naymz To Go F**k Themselves

Jun 01 2009 Published by under Craziness, Stuff That Sucks, The Internet, Web 2.0

About a month ago I received an invite from a friend to try out a social network called “Naymz”. I’m always one to take a look at such things, especially if recommended by a friend. So I clicked through and signed up. That was mistake number one.

Mistake number two (and ultimately a bigger mistake than actually signing up) came in the form of clicking the “See who you know on Naymz” link.

Under normal circumstances, the “who do you know” phase of social netowrk sign up goes something like this:

  1. I select the form of my address book (Gmail, Yahoo, etc) and it searches my contacts.
  2. It shows me a list of the contacts who are currently members and asks me if I would like to become “friends” or whatever the nomenclature they use may be
  3. It then shows me a lit of all the unmatched addresses and asks if I would like to mail them an invite (to which I universally say no)
  4. If I say yes, it e-mails my friends an invite (ONCE!)

This is where Naymz does things a little differently.

Naymz will let you connect to other social networks to find connections. I chose LinkedIn. It scanned my contacts and presented a list, just like the others do.

Naymz, however, actually combines step two and step three above. It presents the list, and lets you send your messages. Since I have signed up for dozens of these networks to test them out, and I have never seen anyone stray too far from the steps I outlined, I clicked ok. I failed to notice that Naymz includes a small icon and disclaimer that says only those people identified with the icon are users (very few of the people I know are – even now). It also says you should remove anyone you don’t want to mail. The icon and disclaimer are small enough that I missed it completely the first time through and only found it after I became aware of my original mistake.

Now, I had expected to see a list of unmatched addresses after clicking that button. What I saw instaed was an immediate inflow of e-mail that had subject lines like, “What the hell is Naymz?”

I spent the better part of a day apologizing to people for the Naymz spam and told them they should not take that as an endorsement of Naymz. I told everyone that I was simply testing it out to see what I thought.

Since that fateful day, I have recieved many more messages asking the same question. Until today, I had always assumed that was because they had just opened the original message.

However, upon actually logging in to Naymz today (I was looking for a way to turn off or limit their WAY too frequent messages to me), I discovered Naymz has been e-mailing constant reminders (a la Plaxo) to those who had not replied. It hadn’t simply used my name to spam them once, it was following up with mupltiple requests.

So now my Naymz account is cancelled. If you received a request from me to sign up, I apologize profusely. If you said yes to that request, doubly so. If you didn’t say yes, and have been bombarded by further appeals since, even more so.

I had told some people that I would let them know my thoughts when I got done with my evaluation. So here it is:

I would avoid Naymz like it’s the plague. It combines all the annoying characteristics of Plaxo with the disregard for informed consent typically reserved for malware.

I have deleted my account. That is a rare step for a guy who has littered the Internet with unused SocNet accounts. But I am not stopping there.

I hereby hope and pray that the good people at Naymz suffer the karmic ass kicking which they have rightly earned. They’ll go down with Plaxo and Gator as yet another Internet scourge.

10 responses so far

Why Twitter Matters & The Left Should Be Nervous

May 05 2009 Published by under Bloggers, Candidates, Craziness, Democrats, Elections, Miscellany, Politics, Republicans, Technology, The Internet, Twitter

I realize I’m inviting much ridicule from my friends on the left, but I’m going to write this post anyway, and I’m going to leave the title intact – Why Twitter Matters & The Left Should Be Nervous. It’s no doubt going to generate some giggles among the online intelligentsia in the Democratic Party. That’s ok with me.

I have, for several months now, seen a string of posts and tweets from these same lefty friends that are either mocking or dismissive of the Conservatives nascent efforts on Twitter. Here’s one example courtesy of TechPresident’s own Micah Sifry.

It’s positively quaint to listen to Republicans murmur optimistically about their “dominance” on Twitter. #polc09, #tcot, #p2

The very first time I saw one, it reminded me immediately of comments I had seen and heard before. They were the openly dismissive comments directed by complacent and cocky Republicans at the Democrats efforts online.

I specifically remember more than a few people, myself included, who watched the rise of the online left with initial derision. As late as 2004 and 2005, I heard things like, “The Democrats and their blogs. How’s that working out for them? All that effort and how many wins has it resulted in?”

Beginning with Conrad Burns and George Allen, we began to quickly see the results of “those blogs”. It’s a lesson we failed to heed early on, and it contributed greatly to our demise.

What we failed to recognize was the infancy of an effort to use new technology to mobilize. It was an effort to build a new network and the infrastructure to disseminate a coherent message.

I have argued that the reason the Democrats never mastered talk radio was very simple – they never had to. In modern politics, the insurgent party will adapt to the most interactive (and the most real-time) technology available at the time. In 1992, having lost the White House, House and Senate, the GOP gravitated toward talk radio. Despite it being a broadcast medium, it was the most interactive medium available. It was adapted to facilitate the conversation about the direction of the party and the country.

The Democrats, rising out of the loss in 2000, had to coallesce around a platform. Talk radio, had the Internet not been available, would likely have become the staging area and the rise of the left on talk radio would have been a near certainty. But a funny thing happened on the march toward the AM dial.

With the Internet, blogs and Meetup became the new polis for the exiled Democrats.

Now you could argue that two data points is hardly enough to qualify my central thesis – the adaption of interactive forums by the out party. But keep in mind that Americans detachment from one another and from in-person communities really didn’t explode until about this same time. Prior to that, most people who were politically active simply turned to their party and its structures. It’s just the last 20 years that have split us from our parties and each other, so we can only look at the data available.

That brings us back to the present day and the Republicans.

Now that we are the out party, we are turning to the Internet to discuss, debate and strategize the party’s future. It is no longer, however, simple enough to label “The Internet” as a monolithic thing the way we did with the Democratic use of the medium. The Internet is no longer about websites as it was with blogs and Meetup. The Internet, as it exists today, is more a generic platform for advanced communication services – whether they are site based, text messages, cellular applications, or anything else.

In the world of converging technologies, Twitter represents the single most interactive, most real-time, tool available. Twitter is mobile. Twitter is rapid. Twitter facilitates deep content (via linking) and fast action (via retweets and viral distribution).

For the Democrats that dismiss Republican testing of many and various models of activism on Twitter, you should watch very closely what’s going on, rather than simply mocking it. Complacency and satisfaction with your status quo is a slippery slope and it’s very easy to fall into the “yes, but what has it gotten them” mindset.

It is likely, I would even say certain, that Twitter, or some next generation concept that builds upon Twitter’s framework, will be a central component of the GOP resurgence. It most certainly won’t happen overnight. However, I guarantee you will – when you find yourself out of power again – be able to trace the roots of your downfall to this earliest of efforts.

Until then, to my friends on the left, let me say two things. First, we’ll keep using Twitter, and you can keep cracking jokes. Second, as long as you do, we’ll see you on the other side, soon enough.

Update: Based on further conversation (via Twitter) about this post, I need to clarify a point. I’m not claiming the GOP is currently “dominant” on Twitter. That was Micah’s reference. I’m simply looking at the tendency for conservatives to adapt to Twitter faster and easier than they have other online venues.

The left’s attitude (represented by Micah’s comment) seems to me to be that the GOP is putting all its eggs in the Twitter basket without doing all the other things that the left did to be successful. My argument is that’s a false assumption. It requires that the GOP mimic the left to advance online. Just as the left bypassed the right’s use of talk radio and went straight on to a different model, I think the right may be able to skip directly past the duplication of the left’s infrastructure by simply making use of what are currently the most advanced communications and mobilization tools. I see evidence that many in the right are developing new models in an effort to do just that.

Those new models have not yet become “dominant”. My central premise is, however, is that many on the left and right seem to believe we must embrace the left’s status quo. I, on the other hand, believe our salvation will not come in duplicating their model, but in creating a new paradigm for our own activism.

One response so far

Meghan McCain, Media Whore

Apr 24 2009 Published by under Bloggers, Politics, Republicans, The Internet, Twitter

I’ve been bitching a lot today via Twitter about Meghan McCain. Unlike most people complaining, my problems with her have nothing to do with her criticism of the GOP. In many ways, we agree on the fundamental problems the Republicans have with trying to stay relevant in a world that is leaving them behind.

My problems have to do with Meghan McCain as a pseudo-celeb trying to force her views on people. It’s the same problem I have with people like Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian telling me what to think – people who have achieved nothing in life other than being born well.

Her latest appearance on The View was much like her written rant about Karl Rove – exaggeration, fabrication, and utter mind-humbing rot coming from a woman who would be unemployable if she weren’t the daughter of a former POTUS candidate. She has never met a truth she couldn’t stretch.

I joined Twitter a few months ago…

No, you didn’t. You joined six weeks ago. You know how I know that? Because you tweeted it on March 7.

We need to take Twitter back from the creepy people.

The creepy people who have been on Twitter for months or even years longer than you have? That’s right, Rove was on twitter two months before you were? What’s next? Are you going to demand we take America back from those creepy Native Americans that live near your parents’ house in Scottsdale?

Let us, instead, look at who contributes more to Twitter. Karl Rove has 43,000 followers and follows 40,000. That’s right. He actually listens to just about as many people as he talks to. What about you, Meghan?

Followers: 26327
Following: 68

Sixty-eight? I have followed more than 68 people completely on accident! How do you have 26,000 followers, but only listen to 68 people? It’s clear you don’t give a shit about the opinions of more than 99.7% of the people interested in your drivel.

Sometimes [Karl Rove] takes questions; other times he talks about his appearances on cable news and other shows. But he doesn’t say anything substantive.

Oh… so we should judge the two of you on substance. Ok… Surely, for someone with a lot to say, you must really put some thought provoking content up on Twitter, right?

I have a very exciting meeting today and the only dilemma is what to wear.

I remember some frito pies and I feel like I ate a lot of chicken patties and jello growing up 2, I loved my cafeteria!

I used to have the hugest crush on Eminem when I was in high school and he still looks hot in his new music video!!

Howard [Stern], I would so go on your show (but I would go on in a suit and keep my clothes on)

Now compare that to Karl Rove:

Please take time 2 read at least 1 of the interrogation memos. I’ve posted them on my website here > http://twurl.nl/b7iiik

Polling News & Notes: The Internet’s Growing Role in American Politics (PDF Download) http://twurl.nl/xm0eon

Politicians ignore tea parties at their peril. http://jijr.com/hehc

Wow! Clearly Meghan’s is a superior intellect. Why talk about foreign policy, trends in American politics, and political activism when you can talk about clothes, not taking your clothes off, jello and eminem.

(Meghan then goes on to pump up her dad’s use of Twitter and how it’s all him. Of course, this is the same guy that told us he couldn’t use a Blackberry because of his arm injuries. So which is it? Is he an invalid who can’t work his own thumbs, but wanted to keep a finger on the nuclear trigger? Or is he a twittering fool?)

Now, like I said, I have no problem with Meghan’s criticism of the GOP. She’s right on many counts.

What I do find tremendously offensive about her is the the fact that trashing the GOP seems to be more of a routine she performs to keep the media spotlight on herself. Now that dear old dad is no longer running for office, how can I keep people’s attention. I’ve got it. Rather than try to be a constructive voice, I’ll just kick the GOP while it’s down. That should get me on camera.

And don’t, for even a moment, think I am a big fan of Karl’s. For all his recent embrace of the Internet and jumping into the discussion, I have seen firsthand his real disdain for that discussion. I don’t buy his bullshit at all.

However, given a choice between the hypocrite and the ridiculous preening of the media whore, I had to flip a coin…

…and Meghan, you lost.

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Online Privacy: “Me” Versus My Metadata

Mar 15 2009 Published by under Marketing, Society, Technology, The Internet

You Do Not Exist.

That’s a hard concept to grapple with, but in many ways it’s true. At South By Southwest yesterday, the panel tackling online privacy the panelists spent a great deal of time discussing online privacy within our current framework for such discussions – “my data is me”.

One panelist went so far as to suggest that your metadata had an assessable value. He suggested that you should have full control over it and went so far as to suggest that you should be compensated for its use.

That prompted me to tweet the following:

Your individual information has no value. Only in aggregation does it gain value. Nobody targets “you”. They target the characteristic.

That led to a bit of chatter on Twitter and some discussions with people there. Most of those forums weren’t really sufficient for really fleshing out the idea, so let me explain.

First, you should understand that the comment was made in the context of privacy and targeted advertising. My friend Paul actually took the concept in a completely different direction and has been pondering the value of individual Twitter content versus the collective. It’s an interesting take, and one I’ll think on. For purposes of this post, however, I’m talking about targeted advertising and your personal data.

You golf. You eat at various restaurants. You travel. You buy things. You have credit cards for certain stores. You are a collection on indivisual characteristics. In typical psychological analysis, those personal characteristics could probably be described as the self. The “self” is very important to our conception of the world.

In the world of digital advertising, however, the self is irrelevant. Those characteristics are meaningless. Unless you are buying very, very expensive luxury goods, there is a high degree of probability that no advertiser is targeting “you”. No advertiser will run an ad campaign with the sole purpose of getting “you” to buy their product. There is simply no economic benefit to limiting your audience to one person.

They are, instead, targeting a collection of characteristics that you happen to have, and characteristics you share with many, many, other people. Your concept of protecting “your” metadata, then, is illusory. There is nothing of value to protect.

How can that be, though? Advertisers will pay a premium to reach me based on that data. So clearly my metadata has worth.

I’m Unique, Just Like Everybody Else.

Advertisers devlop a profile of the person likely to buy their products. That information is matched against consumer information databases. If your profile happens to match those characteristics, those advertisers will deliver an ad unit to you.

However, they’re not delivering that unit to “you”. They are delivering it to a random identifier in a database which matches a random set of variables they found important.

The problem is our sense of our own identity is tied inextricably to that random set of variables. When people use it to communicate with us, we fell manipulated – we feel like big brother is watching us.

I followed up my first tweet with another that read:

A noble goal would be to get people to divoce their concept of “me” from the individual characteristics that comprise that.

I say “noble” in the sense that we hamper our ability to get the most out of the digital world when we cling to these antiquated notions of “self”. The benefit of the digital world comes from the aggregation of data, information, and creation. We recognize the wisdom of crowdsourcing movements and creating in a collaborative environment, yet we resist the aggregation of information for the purpose of making advertising more efficient.

I, for one, welcome a world of targeted advertising. I may never (at least until I’m 50 or 60) have to watch another Viagra or Cialis ad. I may never see another dancing mortgage calculator.

It is ironic that the value of your personal data, and your control over it, was argued at a conference on digital media. The panels at SXSW spend a great deal of time discussing corporations and the fact that they must give up “control”.

That takes many forms. PR practitioners must give up control of their message. Intellectual property holders must give up control of their creation. Network owners must give up control of their networks.

Despite this, we cling to the notion of “our control” of our data based on the flawed notion that it has value – on an individual level – to anyone but us. As I said, our metadata has no value in the singular. It is only in the aggregate that the information means anything to advertisers.

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What Twitter Is… To me…

Feb 24 2009 Published by under Elections, Miscellany, Society, Technology, The Internet, Twitter

I spend a lot of time on Twitter. If you know me, you know that. I spend so much time on Twitter that I had the distinction of being labeled a “nuclear followcost” – in other words, it is really, really annoying to follow me because you’ll actually see me saying something.

So yesterday morning on my way past her office, I stopped to talk to a coworker. She mentions that she just signed up for Twitter. But, she explains, she hasn’t done much with it since she’s not exactly sure what the point of it is.

Twitter is Every Conversation Taking Place Anywhere in the World

In a nutshell, that’s it. If someone is talking about anything – from a good book they read to an interesting article in a magazine, from doing the dishes to the political situation in Darfur – that conversation is taking place on Twitter.

I like to refer to the Internet as the digital water cooler because I see it as a place to have any discussion. Unfortunately for actual water coolers, they are place and time limited. You can only have discussions with the people around them while they’re there. That puts restraints on the people available as well as the topics you might cover.

The Internet has none of that. You can consume and produce your part of the conversation at your convenience. You can read blogs, leave comments, form communities or anything else on your own terms. Twitter is the ultimate representation of that.

Twitter is Egalitarian

On Twitter, you can say whatever interests you, but you will be saying it to a very small audience because Twitter is an egalitarian society – everyone starts with zero followers.

While there is a class of people that are obsessed with the number of people who follow them, I think they miss the larger point. I think the much more relevant number on your stats is the number of people you are following.

It would say more to me that you follow 10,000 than it does that you are followed by 10,000. Twitter is a pull technology. I have to actively choose to pay attention to you. I believe the important number is the count of people you choose to listen to, not the number you can talk to.

Frankly, I don’t follow a lot of the “high value” Twitterers. I don’t buy that they have more to say.

As an example, look at this list of the 10 most influential tweeters in DC.

@PJRodriguez and I were discussing the list over lunch yesterday. He pointed out that @barackobama and @algore are almost completely without merit on this list. Why? Barack’s Twitter account has had nothing to say since the day before the Inauguration. Gore rarely tweets at all, and when he does, has little of consequence to say.

The Politico’s argument for including them is ridiculous – “that spigot could be a powerful communication tool should he choose to turn it back on.” By that standard, people not actually on Twitter could be counted as influential because of the unrealized potential of their influence. If Jesus returned to earth and started tweeting, he’d surely be #1, so why isn’t he on their list?

But What Does This Have to Do With Listening?

To me, listening is more important for three simple reasons:

  • I listen to people who listen to others – I could honestly care less about David Gregory, and much of that is because David Gregory could clearly care less about hearing from me. He has 72,000 followers, but only follows 84 people. Are you really telling me that out of 6 million people on Twitter, only 84 of them have something interesting to say? It’s elitist and bullshit.
  • I find that most people are interesting at least part of the time – I follow as many people as I can, and keep Tweetdeck running on a separate monitor. I scan it frequently throughout the day. I do so because I am constantly finding items of interest and engaging in interesting (to me at least) discussions with people about randowm topics. I would probably spend more time on the public timeline, but it’s a bit too overwhelming.
  • The information I get from “low value” Tweeters is generally more interesting than what “high value” tweeters offer – Many “low value” tweeters talk about things they find interesting. Many “high value” tweeters talk about themselves.

Are You Saying There is a “Right” or “Wrong” Way to Use Twitter?

Absolutely not. That would be like telling people there is a right or wrong way to be interesting, or to be friends, or to think. Use of Twitter is as individual as the users. I hate seeing comments like this one:

For normal humans, though, there is really no need to follow more than a few hundred people.

That’s douchebag-speak for “I don’t follow more than a few hundred people, so if you do, you must be defective.” It’s the same braindead logic that inspired this article.

The clinical psychologist Oliver James has his reservations. ‚ÄúTwittering stems from a lack of identity. It‚Äôs a constant update of who you are, what you are, where you are. Nobody would Twitter if they had a strong sense of identity…

[A]grees Dr David Lewis, a cognitive neuropsychologist and director of research based at the University of Sussex. “Using Twitter suggests a level of insecurity whereby, unless people recognise you, you cease to exist. It may stave off insecurity in the short term, but it won’t cure it.”

That’s such a boneheaded thing to say. Do you apply the same logic to talking to friends? Do I only have friends and talk to them to stave off my own insecurity? If that’s the case, what does that say about these pseudo-intellectuals and their cocktail party circuit? Are they just circle-jerking each other to feel better about themselves?

Ok. The answer to that is probably, “YES!”, but you see my point.

What Twitter Is To Me

I made earlier mention of the digital water cooler and the fact that it is time and place limited. What exactly do I mean by that?

In the real world, I could pop into the office next door and talk to a co-worker about my hobbies and my interests. Or I could talk to my neighbors and the other parents at my kids’ school.

But there is a good chance that my interests won’t be their interests. There is a good possibility that their interests will bore me to tears.

By using Google Alerts or Twitter Search, I can find people talking about things that interest me. Bands that I like, hunting tips, movies, politics… whatever. When I want to talk about these things, I can join a conversation with others who share my interests.

That conversation could be with someone a half a world away, who I may never meet, but I will find fascinating anyway. And for the duration of that exchange, they may be the most fascinating person I know.

That, to me, is the power of Twitter. It is the ability to make deep, and yes likely brief, connections between people on meaningful topics. It serves to remind us that we’re not alone, and we all have something interesting to contribute to the human conversation.

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